Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.29.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of HGreg Nissan of Delray Beach

Episode Date: May 29, 2021

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

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

he dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show. Well, good morning, everybody. We're back that time of the week when the family here in the studio at True Oldies goes to talk instead of music. And now we're talking about how to help you buy your next car or lease it, maintain or repair it. You're listening to our recorded introduction. And here we are alive. We're in South Florida.

But we reach all over the world. Well, let's get realistic. All over the United States and some of the world. But we go to Bali. That's pretty cool. Australia. Australia. Southern Pacific is big with their long cars.

So anyway, it's funny. A little old radio show that we started 20 years ago for a half an hour. Here we are. I won't say we're in the big time, but we're pretty big. I mean, video, we're liven in color. We're on Facebook. We're on YouTube. We're on Twitter.

And stream hurluncars.com. You can watch us, listen to us. And we've been doing this for about 20 years. Crazy. What time we're in. You know, we can't pretend we're not coming out of this COVID epidemic, which is what a time in our lives, right? And it's affected everything. It's because personally, businesses, the economy, some extremely badly.

A lot of people have died. A lot of people were very ill. A lot of people are prospering. A lot of businesses are prospering. Ironically, the automobile business. Who would have thunk it? Worldwide. Boom, like you've never seen before.

Manufacturers, automobile dealers, consumers, bond cars, new, and used like they're going out of style. And here we are, because counterintuitively, because business is so good, it's also so bad for the consumer. You've got to be careful out there, folks.

And you're listening to the truth, the transparency right here on Erlon cars. I always have to give you in full disclosure the fact that we are automobile dealers. This is a group of automobile folks in this room.

and we are in the retail business. We're at you. But this is not, I repeat, this is not an infomercial. We're consumer advocates. We are truly here to help you. And you help us by calling the show. We have some great regular callers. You regular callers, thank you, thank you.

You're the backbone of the show. And we listen to you, and we look forward to your calls every week. And we look for new callers, too, because we're getting bigger and bigger and because we have more sources of feedback, crazy stuff that

nobody has anonymousfeedback.com what's that? Nobody has that. If you want to talk to Earl Stewart on Cars, anybody here, Nancy or Stu or Rick or me,

you can do it anonymously. You got an ax to grind with Stu? Let them have it. Oh, boy. You're anonymous. anonymousfeedback.com. They tried that last week.

Yeah. Sometimes, he irritates me sometimes. I might send him an anonymous feedback myself. Earl is so much nicer than I am. Anyway, communicate the way you'd like to communicate with us. We have a real simple. We love the telephone. Remember the telephone?

I guess we call it a smartphone now. I don't know what we call it. A communication device. 877-960. 9-960. That's what it's all about. Communication, your questions, your comments, your jokes. Because we are entertainment, not just informative. Call us, and we prioritize the phone calls.

Why? Because we've only got three or four lines coming in. And when we get busy, because we've grown so much, the phone can back up, and you can either get a busy signal or get put on hold, and you don't get taken care of. We give you a priority. Nancy Stewart, my co-host, she watches her computer screen very carefully. So when someone calls at 877-9-60-960,

she screams and yells, waves her hands, and pokes me in the ribs, and we try to quit yakking and get to the phone calls. And then we have the second tier of the fax line because fax is kind of in. I'm a fax person. Used to be a phone person, now I'm a fax person. and Rick, what are you,

a fact, right? You're a YouTube person. I'm everything. Yeah, he's everything. Multi-channel. You're pretty close to being a millennial, so you're... Yes, well, actually, we're... No, we're actually on the older side of the Generation X. Yeah.

Rick and I were both born in 1968, where it puts us three years into Gen X, so we're three years removed from being baby boomers. Well, I still ride a horse, so I've been around... Well, you're in the silent generation. Yeah, right. Horse and buggy. Nancy and I come every morning in the horse and buggy.

I'm only kidding. V8 horse and buggy. Anyway, what a time we're living in. And we're happy in this studio. We don't have our mask on. I can't, you know, every time I pull up to the studio now, I reach for my mask, but we don't have to because we're all vaccinated. And that is really cool.

And it's freedom. It's like, almost like getting your first car. I mean, it's a freedom machine. I mean, we can yak, we can look at each other, we can hug each other all along. I'm not going to hug Rick. Thank you. But we, you know what I'm saying? We can shake hands, and it's good.

And that's where we are. So here we are. We're happy. We're prosperous. The worst is behind us. I really don't think it's coming back. I think the world is going to be a better place, and we're here to have fun, and you're a big part of the fun. And so I don't yank, and because we can't get our phone lines together, I'm going to ask Nancy Stewart, my co-host, who is a co-founder of the show.

That's very important. And it's been with us, with you and with the team here for a long, long time, for a while of just Nancy and me. And here we are with a wonderful team in the studio. Nancy is our consumer advocate for females. She's a consumer advocate of everybody, but her specialty is females. Tell us about the special offer, Nancy, that we've got for our first two new female callers. Oh, thank you so much for the first two new female callers. We have $50 for you.

$50 this morning. Share with us your, well, negotiating skills, whether or not you feel you paid the lowest price for your vehicle, or tell us about your lease. service, anything at all. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. But remember, you do

have to call in for the $50, the first two new lady callers in. Don't forget, if you're a little bashful, besides texting, you can go to www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com and voice your opinion.

Now back to the covering car dealer? It's all about communication, folks. I mean, we can get right to it. I always like to remind you, even though it's on the recording thing, that we sometimes drift off into a buy car show, a lease car show. Rick Kearney is such an important part of the team here, because we find more challenges today with the modern cars than we anticipated we're going through some rapid technological changes and cars are more difficult to drive today in a lot of ways you can drive them the way you always did easier but if if you want to get the full usage out of a car you have to know

more about it and that's a real challenge and you probably don't know half of what your car can do today Rick Kearney can help you with that they're not going to be a lot of problems but if you have one he can help you with the problems, too. Mechanical, electronic, computer-wise, you can help you there. So don't forget YouTube, he monitors YouTube, YouTube.com, 4-slash-R-Long cars, and if you have a mechanical, technical problem, goes right to Rick. Let's get to our communications. Hopefully we have some text or some anonymous feedback, Stu. What do we got over there? Well, we always kick off with Anne-Marie's inaugural text every morning, so we'll do that, keep the tradition.

going. And Amory starts off with a Tesla question. She says, good morning. Tesla offers a feature called full self-driving system. This phrase has led to some confusion because the system is reportedly not a fully automated autopilot system that some people feel the phrase implies. The videos of sleeping people in Tesla's going down the highway are rather alarming. They are. Granted, a consumer, an attorney, and a car manufacturer are likely to have different opinions on what to call such features. As a non-lawyer and a consumer, I would think that a feature called full self-driving would allow me to input and address and let the car take me there without any additional effort on my part so I could sit back and relax. Apparently, full self-driving mode might be

more accurately named enhanced cruise control because of what it can and more importantly cannot do. As a non-Tesla car dealer, how would you describe the differences between wishful thinking, delusional expectations, puffery, misrepresentation, and outright lie. Thank you. Well, I think Stu can answer that because he's driving a Tesla. And, in fact, he ordered my new Tesla because Tesla has become, talking about changes, it's become arguably the most popular car in the world. Our dealership, we've been, we are a Toyota dealer.

and the Toyota dealer, the Toyota franchise, the Toyota car, has been number one in volume, number one in manufacturing, number one. I mean, really, really good. Right now, if you do some checking, you'll find Tesla and Toyota nipping, tuck, and in every category in terms of who would have thunk it 10 years ago. So, Stu, we went to lunch the other day in your autonomous car. And I caused Earl to float with weightless for a moment as I gave him a little taste of the acceleration. And I glanced to my right, and I saw Earl about three inches above his seat. I mean, frankly, it hurt because the seat belt grabbed me so hard. I felt bad.

That he bruised my chest. But we all laughed afterwards. We were in a ludicrous mode. We all left. Yes. So on the, okay, so to answer your, the last question, is it delusional expectations, puffery, misrepresentation? I don't know. I'm a fan of the car, and I'm a fan of Elon Musk, even though I recognize his controversial nature.

Tell him when we came out of the dealership and you said, are we going to lunch in your car? This is Jason and Stu and Josh, my three sons and I. And you said, let's take my car. I says, no, my car's right there. We've got to go looking for your car. And you said, what's this, Dad? Right. So real quick, just to finish that thought, Elon is master of puffery.

So he does exaggerate, you know, timelines, capabilities and all that. But I'm going to say this is, the full self-driving mode goes beyond enhanced cruise control. And what Earl was referring to is we stood there out by the door of the dealership. And I took out my phone, opened the Tesla app. and I hit summon. And then on another, yeah, summon. And so in a different part of our parking lot, my Tesla came to life and drove out of the parking lot without anybody,

looked both ways, drove over to us and stopped right in front of us without anybody driving it. Very very, very looking. Very scary. We're looking around. We're looking around. We don't see anything because the car's on the other side of the dealership. And we're looking around. And all of a sudden, this car, and you look at the car,

There's nobody driving the car. It's a ghost car. It's a ghost car. So we get in. So now, just to answer your question, the full self-driving mode, which they say is going to be upgraded to street-by-street city turning. Right now, if you're driving the car, it still requires driver input. But it will change lanes when it sees the opportunity to change the lane. It will stop at a stoplight or in a stop sign.

It will stop if a car goes in front of you. Some of that is the enhanced cruise control capabilities, but the navigation part that Amory referred to about putting an address in works on interstates and turnpikes. So at this point, once you get to the entrance ramp, it will navigate, steer your car onto the entrance ramp, get you on the I-95, it will change lanes as necessary, and then exit you and get you off I-95. I did it last week going to the airport the entire way, and it was really cool, and it's a little unsettling, you've got to get used to it. and they say later on the full self-turn by turn driving and the city is coming. But here's the thing where it's not quite there yet.

So like Elon and I said, uses a lot of puffery. So he says that eventually it's going to be this level five automated driving, which is literally you can go to sleep, drink a bottle of vodka, and the car is going to get you there. They're not even close to that yet.

It still requires you. It prompts you. Like if you're coming up to a traffic light, it's going to default to the safest thing, which is stopping at that light. So it'll prompt you. And you've got to, like, pull on a little lever to say, no, I'll go through that light. And I think that's great because if there's something that their system can't recognize it as a danger,

it's better to default to stopping than crashing into it. So we're not there yet. And Amory, just a short answer to your question, I'm going to say it's puffery, but it keeps improving. That's the cool thing. We talk about this on the show. Every new capability for these cars is going to come in the form of an over-the-air software update. So when it can do more, it's just going to update and do it. No, perfect way.

We are right now in the days of like 1895 to 1900. We're all riding on horses, looking over and seeing this thing with four wheels, cruising around with no horse in front of it, and we're staring at it like, what in the world? Yeah, good point. And the people that are driving them, like you, right now, Stu, you are the guy. I'm getting comfortable. Carl Benz's first automobile.

I got a top hat on. While the rest of us are riding right on our horses. It's great. This is that turning point. These are the days when we are going to transition into a new period. I'm telling you, when you first do it and you're going to enjoy it, you're going to be here in a couple of weeks. The first few times you do it, it's really ailing and scary because when you see the steering wheel turning for you,

that's kind of, that kind of gets you in. And there's other cars, by the way, Tesla is a master of marketing. and he's really selling the potential to these cars. A lot of manufacturers, including Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, B&W have what we call the adaptive cruise control in the lane trace. So right now, like a Toyota, certain Toytas can do a lot of what this Tesla can do, turning by itself on the highway, coming to a complete stop. And the Tesla is just a little bit further along, but it's pretty cool.

And you're right, we're at the cusp of a whole new area. So let's hear some other comments from the folks out there. We have, there's two schools of thought on the Tesla. Anne-Marie has one. I think she's a little skeptical of the ultimate conclusion to what we're talking about here, which is going from horse and buggy to the horseless carriage. And we'll see. And there's two schools of thought, and everybody has an opinion about the Tesla.

Yes, definitely. It is the day of, or days, I should say, of wine and roses. Boy, I'll tell you, did you ever think would be sitting here talking, you know, making conversation right now about autonomous? And ladies and gentlemen, how do you feel? Are you ready? Are you ready for autonomous? Are you ready to let go of the control? And it's an amazing time.

So, with all of that said, 877-960, 99-60, and remember, ladies, give me a call. us a call. You can win yourself $50 to the first two new lady callers. $50. How do you feel about autonomous cars? Okay, we're going to go to Howard, who's been holding. Thanks for your patience, Howard. Welcome. Thank you very much. I just a little comment about autonomous cars. How can the person afford this? I mean, this is going to be, like, a tremendous amount of money to pay. And, no, I won't be able to afford the top of the sky. I won't be here anyway, but that's the point.

You know, the point is my son, let's say. He's 62. So he'll be around a little bit longer. I mean, how much will this cost? Well, Howard, you're absolutely right. Like, every new technology, it starts off. as a high-end feature and then eventually, you know, makes its way down as, you know, the production costs come down and they can make it more a little bit more democratic.

So, yeah, for the Tesla that we were just talking about, that's completely prohibitive against most Americans. It's well over $100,000. And just upgrading to that feature, the full self-driving is an additional $10,000 option. So that's, like, completely insane. The only reason we're able to do is, you know, we put in our inventory eventually we sell them. So that's a perk of being a car dealer. But I mentioned with the last, with Amory's text question, this technology is available on lower-end, less expensive vehicles.

And they are on the upper end of, like, for example, Toyota's like a limited Rav-4 hybrid. You know, that's the upper end of the Rav-4 hybrid. And what will happen when they have the autonomous car, when it is available, when it is illegal? Remember, if they're not legal now. And so when the technology is there, at the same time, the legality is there, the manufacturers will do what they always do to get market share. They'll take a loss or they'll sell the cars at a very low price just to get them established. This is what happened with the latest big technological breakthrough, the hybrid.

Now, when Toyota took control of the hybrid market back in the 90s, early 2000s, late 90s, early 2000. Yeah. back then they were losing the money on every Prius they sold the domestic manufacturers were angry at Toyota because they knew how much it cost to build a Prius and they knew they were losing the money

and that's what happened that Toyota has deep pockets so the manufacturers that survive and prevail in this new world with autonomous driving either they're going to be able to take the head sell cars at a loss lose literally billions of dollars

to establish it. Once they get the scale going, and they scale the manufacturer, the demand, then suddenly they start making money. And let me tell you, Toyota's making a ton of money on Priuses today, but they lost the beginning. Same thing with autonomous cars. They're coming. They're going to be here, and they will make money, but at first they won't. But they'll price them competitively. It will be affordable. And I'll even say a lot of the features that we talked about can be had for a reasonable price. I think the average, what's the average price of a new car these days? 45,000. Yeah, so in the mid-upper-40s, you can get a same-level autonomous driving as you do,

spending $150,000 with a Tesla. Yeah. That's a good point. Okay. Thanks, Howard. Good point. Good point. Good observation.

Okay. Have a good day. You too. I mean, we're going to be looking around at Tesla's everywhere. Yeah. I've already seen a minute. I think we've got a YouTube over here. be an amazing time. Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget, $50 for the first two new female callers.

I'm going to keep on mentioning that until I hear from one of you young ladies that I spoke to this week. 877-960-99-60, and yes, $50 for the first two new lady callers. And don't forget your anonymous feedback, www. www. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. Now we're going to go to Rick. I think he's got some things down there to share with us. Guy Larrabee is asking, I'm shopping for a recent used Lexus. Presently with COVID and computer chip issues,

is it reasonable to ask for a 10% discount off the internet price? Many used cars are clearly overpriced. You can try. It's certainly not unreasonable because that's what the game is played. And if you don't ask for a discount, you won't get one. and sometimes you will get one. So the fact of the matter is, used cars are high price,

and the market has gone up to the higher price, supply and demand. You just have to be very careful when you buy the car today. You're going to pay more for a used car today. There's no way you're going to get around that. And if you're not careful, you'll pay way too much for that used car. So watch the market.

Don't ask for a discount. count and then when you don't get it, don't buy the car or don't, if you do get it, don't buy the car. It's just a starting game. Competitive comparison is the only way to buy a car. A little harder with the used car because used cars are unique. If you're buying a Honda cord, there's a million of them out here. And there's a million Honda dealers out there.

And you can shop and shop and shop until you're exhausted and get a heck of a deal. But with the used car, you find a certain maintenance and repair history. You find certain colors that maybe are not so available, and they're unique. So the used car grosses, we call them in the car business, the profits are higher on used cars than they are new. And we can get away with it because of supply and demand. But get used to it. If you're going to buy a used car, you're going to pay more today than you did a year ago. About 50% more, actually.

If you want to sell your car, the good news is you get a lot more. I'd be thinking in terms of the win-win for you consumers out there is don't be a consumer, be a seller. If you have an extra car in the family, take the profit. If you have a car sitting there and the tires are getting square because you're not driving it, it's an extra car. Maybe you have somebody in the family went off to school and their car sitting there. Maybe somebody can't drive the car anymore. It's sitting there. look around and shop it

get the highest price you'll make 50% more on the car than you thought you would but if you trade it and then you you get more for the trade in if you try hard but you'll have to pay a lot more

for the car you buy so sell your car take your profit yeah another thing to keep in mind is when the prices are going up the big costs are going up so I know we had a discussion last week with a caller when we were discussing the difference between

price gouging and just the increase in prices based on demand and low supply. So the used car dealer's cost on that car is going up. It doesn't mean that because there's a shortage, they're going necessarily be, you know, just increasing their margins by a huge amount. Now, that is happening because dealers are trying to take advantage of the situation, but everything is a factor, including the cost to the dealers. Okay. We are going to phone lines are going.

That's good. Okay, we're going to go to Marty, who's been holding, and he is a regular caller. Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you. And the Teslas, they've always noted, I guess it just because it's a Tesla, people have gotten killed in a lot of, not that they don't get killed in regular cars, but they got killed in Tesla because they was doing their automatic driving. So my point is, or I just wonder, you know, what's, you have to pay attention no matter what kind of, even if you buy $150,000 Tesla, I would say you've got to be on alert.

What do you think? Yes. No, I think you're totally right. And I think the same thing applies to a lot of high-tech features on cars today without going all the way the autonomous thing. I'll say this when we went to lunch on Wednesday and Stu was driving his Tesla with me and his brothers

I felt perfectly safe I mean Stu has hands off the wheel just to show what was going on and we watched it but I could see where we could have used that literally I mean Stu could have got in the back seat and I'd have been in the passenger seat by myself

that would have been foolhardy so people do foolish things because they have things that they technological things they can rely on. They're fun. You can do it with your own car. I am guilty. I have blindside lights that go on my side view mirrors when somebody's in my blind spot. And I rely on that. Now, if someone actually turned that switch off, and I didn't look in my review mirror or my side view of mirror, and I just look for the indicator light, I could have a serious accident. So we all tend to rely on technology. and that's just a fact of life.

I got to jump in with no disrespect for the people that just got killed like in that crash that was in the news a few weeks ago. But I think in the media it's portrayed like Tesla says it's full self-driving and people are jumping in the back seat and sending off their cars on their own. If you drive that car the very first time under quote-unquote self-driving, you know that this car cannot drive itself completely. So if you get into the back seat or the passenger seat,

you're an idiot. because you're going there's no way I could have confused after five minutes of playing with this thing that I ever thought that for a second I couldn't be behind the wheel I think these are reckless and foolish people that are drawing a lot of attention to a safety feature that they never would have done it they want a viral Instagram video yeah yeah I've seen non-crashes I saw a mom and her 16 year old son some spoiled kid driving his Tesla Model S and his mom's in the back seat he climbs in the passenger sheet and they're trying to get a viral TikTok video and I just want to say they I'm not going to say that they don't deserve to

die but they deserve to be scared but you and I we wouldn't do that you know that wouldn't it would never happen smart people would not take that reckless chance now my son has a model three he got it about two two three years ago and the thing that I don't like is the screen is the like blind spot monitor and everything so you're looking to me, you're sort of looking away from the road to look at the screen to see if anybody's coming. It's maybe just because I'm used to obviously the side view mirror and the blind spot monitor, but it's like where you had where you said the car came out by itself from the parking lot, would it stop if a person's crossing in front of that car as it comes

to get you? Yes. I mean, is all that programmed in? Yeah, as a matter of fact, it'll actually It'll explain why the car is taking. It says pedestrian. It'll say pedestrian and it'll say it on the app and a little wait. So it can recognize that. I tried it at my house and there was a garbage can on the curb next to the car. And it was having a hard time because of that. It didn't want to run it over.

You know, if I was driving, I just would have run it over. Marty, your observation about not looking out the window and not seeing what's really going on because you're looking at the instrument reminds me of the airplane issue. You know, airplanes are way ahead of cars and being autonomous. When you get on a 737, you take a commercial airliners a day. That's an autonomous transportation vehicle. That plane, airplane, will take off and land and fly all by itself.

And who knows what's going on in the cockpit now? They got it locked. But let me tell you something. There's a whole lot of attention ain't happening because they have found statistically that an airplane flies better on instruments than with a pilot. And a lot of the serious accidents in airplanes because the pilot error, they didn't trust their instruments. And a lot of terrible, particularly amateurs, not professionals so much, amateur pilots, they have to see out the window like you do, and I do. I'm driving a car, but the fact of the matter is when the technology is there, the seeing is not as good as the technology. And you talk to any amateur pilot, they'll tell you most plane crashes, if the pilot had believed as instruments,

they look at the instruments, say they can't be right, I'm not losing altitude, and they crash. And the instrument was right, and he was wrong. okay all right thank you marty thanks for your opinion and uh i'm going to stick to my camera it's completely understandable it's a creepy feeling and we're not there yet but what earl's talking about is true at some point you know computers don't get tired they don't get angry they don't get in bad moods they don't want to get revenge on the car that cut them off you know it has

faster reaction times it sees things that you could never see or sense and uh at some point there's going to be a threshold and I don't think anybody would argue it's like what Rick said when you said that I was thinking about how and what are you doing Earl close the trunk 2001 of Space Odyssey right yeah exactly another one other point is they've got to make a lot of charges you mean oh yeah charging stations yeah yeah that's a put a lot in oh yeah yeah to be to mass produce a lot of electric cars. Because now, I know that the screen tells you where the next supercharger is,

but you know, on Okeechobe Boulevard, there's a Toyota, I guess it's a dealership or whatever you want to call it. You can't even charge your car there. You've got to go somewhere else to charge it. Yeah. It's a matter of getting used to, and you're right. But after a while, that's not going to be an issue. And how far do you drive anyway?

I mean, when the average range is 300 or 400 miles, who drives three or 400 miles a day? Most people don't, so 99% of Americans are going to be happy with them. The same question was had in 1903, and they said, what are you going to put a gas station on every corner? How's that going to happen? Yeah. Right. Now look at us. What they sure did.

All right, thanks. Thank you, Martin. Thanks, Marty. I think what we'll be looking at here is less human error for sure. We're going to stay with the telephones, and we're going to go to Dog Walker, Dave, who gives us a call. Good morning. Good morning, guys. I'll talk to you again.

And good morning to your doggie. Welcome back. Yeah. Yeah. We're having a good time here at the park. Listen, Earl actually just made my point about technologies and where we stand and where we're going with technology. and how they apply to different, to me, scary possibilities, autonomous cars just scare old guys like me to death, I thought of it.

But you go back and you think about it to Rick's point that, you know, everybody was horseback in the 1800s and early 1900s. Well, that is not entirely true. There was rail systems. We had railroads. And so when the Stanley Steamer came along, it was a borrowed technology from something that people already knew something about. And I think that kind of thought process can give us some confidence. I mean, we not only have airplanes that fly better through technology, we have space program that, you know, is almost all.

automatic push button stuff. Even our fishing boats now have navigation in them and things like that. So just to the point that even when the first automobile hit the road, the technology had existed on a much larger scale for quite some time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to put away all of our old guy fears and open our eyes a little bit and say, yeah, you know, this is coming and it can. it could be really good.

The infrastructure needs to catch up. That's going to be the big issue. I agree. A thousand percent. Yeah. Yeah. Very good observation, Dave. All right, guys.

Have a good day. Thank you. You too. Thanks for the call, Dave. You too can be part of the show. Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60. Don't forget, ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Now, we are going to go back.

Back to Rick. He's got some YouTube's down there. Yeah, I got one from Bro Scientist. Says, is this a terrible time to buy a car? And interesting, Ernesto just posted a moment ago. He says, Bro, Scientist, if you need to buy a car, get at least three competitive prices, buy the one that gives you the best price. If you can wait to buy, that would be best. Prices are higher than normal right now. So Ernesto, one of our regulars on YouTube is right on the ball with us, I think.

and said it better. Exactly the way. You know, I think I sometimes go overboard on telling people to wait. Owning a car, a new car. When I say a new car, I mean a new used car. Or a new new car. I mean, it's new to you, right? And if you get an old clunker, you don't have a car at all, if it's your first car,

let me tell you something. Owning a vehicle, and I know this is prejudice because I'm a car dealer, but owning a vehicle is one of the exciting things in your life. Speaking as a male, I mean, I can remember my first kiss from a girl. I can remember my first date. I can remember my first car. My first born. Yeah, my first born.

I mean, these are earth change, they're life-changing experiences. And the milestones. So, you don't want to wait two years to buy a car if you really want one and you take, and you can afford it. And you get a relatively space. A good price is what. is what the competitive price is in the marketplace. And if it's $1,000 more than it'll be a year from now, you have to ask yourself,

driving that car for a year, is it worth $1,000 extra? And to a lot of people, it would be. So if you don't need the car and you don't need the thrill and you don't need the life-changing experience, then wait a year and you get a better deal, simple as that. Can I do something? Here, I want to jump in and say something. Elon Musk and we're telling everyone what a great guy Elon is. He's my hero. Truly he is.

And this is a tongue-in-cheek blog article I wrote. And I'm trying to get Elon's attention. I didn't tell Stu this, but they had an article in the newspapers the other day about, if you really want to get your Tesla, I had a schedule, here's the way to do it. And they talked about the guy that tweeted Elon and Elon put in my head of the line to get his Tesla. I'm not trying to get my Tesla at a time. I'm trying to get Elon to call me.

They announced yesterday that they're delayed by a week. They need more tweaking. Yes. That's what they said. Okay. But my point being that Elon is charging hidden fees when he sells his Tesla's. And I know Elon doesn't sell Tesla's and I know he's a he's a conglomerate.

He does spaceships. He does everything. But he is a type of person that he's honest, he's transparent and if he, if someone would get him to read this blog, it is called open letter to Elon Musk eliminate hidden dealer

fees. If Elon would call me or read the blog or text me, reading the blog will do it all. You need to get rid of those hidden fees. It's not you, Elon. This is not you. This is not Tesla. This is not transparency. When you advertise a Tesla or any vehicle, you have to include all your costs.

You can't make an extra profit by quoting lower price and then sneaking the fee in, which is profit, when you sell the car. And don't use the gas savings in the price of the car. Yeah. Because he actually itemized that. Exactly. It's silly. And Elon, you don't know about this. So somewhere out there in the world, someone knows Elon Musk.

He hired somebody from like Ford marketing or somebody from the business did that. Yeah. So get Elon to call me. He could call me a 5-6-1-358-1474. That's my personal cell phone number. 561-358, 14-7-1-4-7. Or Elon tweet at Earl on Cars. Or tweet, yeah.

He likes tweeting. Yeah, tweeting. And just take a look at it. I promise you you, you'll thank me. Okay. Let's move along. Okay, folks. No matter which way you slice it, hidden fees, well, it's a mortal sin.

No, it's not a one. Pick up the... You Catholics, I'll tell you. You just leave us Catholics alone. Everything's a mortal sin, right? No, not everything. We got venial sins, mortal sins. Growing up, some of my greatest thrills were with the mortal sins.

I'll have you know. Anyway, back the rules column. Pick that up. You can go to Earl on Cars. You can pick it up at Florida Weekly or the hometown news. Open letter to Elon Musk. Eliminate hidden fees on Tesla's. Nope, no matter if you can afford $150,000, still doesn't make it right.

Ah, you have to be transparent, Elon. So give us a call. We'd love you to be part of the show. 877-9-60-9-90. 9960. Oh, I just felt good saying that. Maybe somebody that does a really good Elon Musk impersonation. Just call the show and pretend to be Elon Musk. And we'll pretend like we believe you.

And that'll really get our ratings up. Now that wouldn't be honest and transparent. We've got to get to the telephones. Warren, I hope you're enjoying all this. This is the comedy corner. Warren, welcome to the show. Warren's calling us from Pompano. Thank you very much, guys.

I had a couple of things to say, because I had a couple of things I've had to do with cars. I'm up in actually New Jersey, in Portland, New Jersey. The weather was bizarre. 90 degrees on Thursday, and now it's raining and pouring in 55 degrees. No. And anyway, the reason why I closed a couple of things. I had it had my car fixed. I had a 2010-to-a-course, and I had to put $900 in,000.

I didn't want to do it. And the guy said to me, he said, look, if you don't, do what you can't drive. But used cars up here are just such a gem that would get good money for it. And the cost behind $900 to fix it. And he sent me to somebody and he said to me, look, I'll give you $3,500 on the spot. Remember the cars that have $165,000 miles and it was 10 years old. So it was worth fixing. I didn't do it right then because I got to look for a car. I need a car to look for a car. So, just to your point, the blue cars are losing, because I figured I got a thousand dollars in a lot. So that was just the point they wanted to make. Now, the other thing is,

I had a rent-a-bar for a day, and it was $115 here in New Jersey. The course of the bridge of Manhattan, the guy told me they're getting $250 a day for the rest of the cost. Wow. A lot of people in Manhattan don't have cars. So he said, I was lucky to get him to a day. He said, Memorial Day weekend. He's completely sold that. He's a small franchise, you know, rent-the-car store. And he had absolutely no cars.

He had one for Wednesday when I rented it. He gave to me for $115. He said, over the weekend in Manhattan, the people been calling him off, he was getting $250 a day to use cars, I mean, for a rental cars, because there's just no rented cars. That's actually not even surprising to me at all.

I mean, because the rental car companies are over, they're the ones that are driving them in the market. They're the ones that are overpaying for these used cars, and they're going to depreciate them over the course of the year. They're not selling them right away. And so they're going to try and recoup a lot of that depreciation and jacking up their rental fees. Here, this is another point on it,

that I called a couple of millions for a living for a car. It's just the starting point. I'm listening to Errol and everything about getting prices. So I just called the Nissan deal. The system was starting to somebody who had bought a car from his guy. He was his cousin. He gave me prices for a lease on a car. And he said, what about the least expensive?

He says, I have no, because all the used car companies, I mean, all the rental car companies bought the least expensive cars. He says, there aren't, and you have to get them fully loaded. Now, is full of it or not, I don't know. But I wasn't buying it anyway, and I just wanted to get a start. Sounded like puffery. Yeah, I don't know. He gave me some prices.

You know, I guess somebody said, at least I got a starting at point A to work with and pull around and look. Now that I got the car back, I'm not to feel so pressured to buy another one immediately, but I am at a certain point it may get it up here, maybe I'll get it down there. I'm not sure.

The last one is I know if you guys read yesterday, General Motors is starting up production, and a lot of the cars that it has to spend because of the chip crisis. I don't know if you saw that or not. So does that mean the chip crisis is over? I don't think so. Everything I've heard, I mean, I didn't read the article.

So if they're picking up some production, I guess that was anticipated, but I don't think everything I've read so far as we're looking at. It said in the article yesterday in the Times, it said that they were not, I don't have the exact thing. Sometime in the human opinion, production. And I don't remember the plant.

They're calling back the entire plant. The entire plant was called someplace. One of their plants here in the United States. Well, that will help. And they said that it was not anticipated for at least the month after that. But now, it didn't say anything specifically

about the chip. It just said that the General Motors was opening up maybe two plants, two in the United States and one in Mexico to start production of the trucks, you know, the various, so they said they were going to start that right in the middle of June, and they gave the date, and they said that was at least a month or two months before they had anticipated doing that.

Yeah, I just found the article here in the Times. Yeah, so four North American plants are going to come back online. Well, that's definitely going to help. I don't know if it's going to, you know, to the extent, but yeah, that's definitely going to be at the beginning. Yeah, the chip crisis is not uniform among all manufacturers, and the bigger manufacturers are doing better. the ones that were the best customers for the microchip manufacturers are getting favorite treatment. So when it gets short, the smaller manufacturers like Fiat that are not big, good customers, they don't get the preferential treatment from the microchip manufacturers.

And also, each manufacturer had its own unique set of circumstances as to what their supply chain look like. And so it'll be spotty. I mean, certain cars are going to have, manufacturers will have chronic severe problems with microchips, and others won't have very big problems at all. So, and the whole problem with the microchip, it's not going to last much longer. It'll be, people are looking at, you know, another couple of months, and the microchip problem will be resolved. So after that, it'll be just pure demand because the economy is roaring and going crazy. I think that steel is going to be a big problem.

Steel prices, commodity prices are going up. So prices will continue to go up, demands going up. Don't be looking for lower prices for a year, but the microchip problem will not be the thing in three or four months. All right, guys, just one last statement. I want to thank you, guys, because when I called up a couple of places about leasing the car, I had a bunch of questions written down,

and I just was able to rapid fire for the salesman, and say, you know, this, this, this, this, you know, how much we live, blah, blah, blah, what's the buy out, what is this, what is it. And so it's surprised when, you know, I just rapid fire the question, and they started to go, you know, I have to look it up. And, you know, I have a whole list of about 10 questions on a lease. And, you know, I want them answered. And it's just sort of surprise. You know, what's the buy? Well, I don't know yet.

I got to look at the car. How many miles do you get into the car? Is it 12 or 10? Well, I'm not sure. So when you're hitting with these questions, they're not always ready to answer them. They just want to give you the price of them, you know, the monthly, you know, the monthly price and how much down, and they're expecting to say, that's great, and they're coming to buy the car. So I want to thank you guys to think, you know, we need to do your homework to really know what you're talking about.

All right. Thank you, Warren. Okay, thank you, guys. Have a good day. You too. Bye-bye. Give us a call again, Warren. 877-960, 9960, where you can text us at 7,000.

972-497-6-5-30. Give us a call. What did you get for your used car this week? Did you take advantage of the prices of used cars? Oh, it's amazing. I believe that the price increase is like almost 54% increase, and it's just an amazing time to sell your used car. Anyway, give us a call, share your story with us.

877-960. Now back to Rick. Robert is asking, when will Toyota have the Camry Prime like the RAV-4 Prime? Interesting question. Toyota is promising electrification on every model within the next five years. I have not heard specifically about a plug-in Camry. I wouldn't be surprised. They're introducing an electric vehicle late this year or early next year called the BZ4X. I hope they don't call it that when they start selling it. It's a terrible name. Buzzer.

Right. So the answer is I don't know the answer to that question, but we will see probably an electric camry within the next five years. Whether it's a plug-in hybrid or an all-electric, we don't know yet. But it's happening. All manufacturers, they're all jumping on board. and I've got Andrew says our Subaru was serviced by the Delray dealer service was below expectations

my wife and I chose not to provide a survey Subaru mailed the survey to them but they still don't want to provide feedback what are your thoughts on whether or not they should fill out the survey yeah it's up to you I mean I think surveys are pains in the butt I get survey and everything I do

I reach out on every website and I usually reserve it and I'm probably not a good consumer, but for outstanding, like something that really blows my mind or something that really, really upsets me. Other than that, I kind of delete them out of my inbox. Well, isn't it through the surveys for a dealership sent by the manufacturer, a negative survey can have an impact on the dealership if they get enough of them, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, and it has an impact in every company that sends a survey. I'm just me personally, I'm just kind of a

crumption. I would say, especially with a Subaru dealer, because Subaru has such a good reputation, their dealers typically are above average. They take care of their customers better, the vehicle's better. I think a negative Subaru survey would

have probably more impact than We would hope. We just know that bad surveys, I mean, without exposing Toyota or every other manufacturer, the survey system is nonsense. It comes back in And they pay employees to get good scores. But less and less of that's going on because they're modifying,

they're understanding that the dealers manipulated the survey system. And they used to be, the dealers could fill the surveys out, give you a free tank of gas, a plea and beg, say, you know, if you don't get me a good survey, I'm going to get fired, and there's all a lot of going on. Now the manufacturers are going directly to the customer, and you fill it out, and they don't know. that you filled it out.

So I do a lot. I feel a lot of surveys. I'll buy them like Stu. If I'm in the middle, I don't fill it out. But I'm really angry, I fill it out. If I'm really happy, I fill it out. And it makes you feel good when you give somebody a good survey. It does.

And if somebody asks me, and if you're happy, please, and then if I have a relationship of some sort. But, yeah, like most manufacturers aren't really paying attention to that anyway. They're putting, like, we're people putting their, their money, where is it, where their mouth is, retention. So they're measuring if you do business with a customer, if they keep coming back to do business with you, that's the

ultimate measure of customer satisfaction, and that's what they're measuring now. There you go. Absolutely. Why do things have to become so complicated and take an advantage of by filling out that questionnaire? That was something that I would

definitely, 150% I fill those out. I used to, used to. I used to. But it's become such a complicated issue and it's such, I'm going to call it fake news, you know, they can just really, I call fudge the numbers. Okay, we have been waiting for our first female caller and she has arrived from West Pone Beach. Her name is Michelle. Good morning, Michelle, and welcome. You just won yourself $50. Oh, that's great. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. What can we do for you this morning?

I wanted to call with a Memorial Day 2019 story. I've only been listening in a couple weeks. I love it. My husband's a long-time listener. He loves it. I started listening. And in 2019, we went to a local Kia dealer to buy our third, number three. We had a red, a white, and now we have a blue, Kia Sol. And when we went there, we waited for a long time walking the lot. We wondered if it was even anyone, even there, kept walking around. No one came to us.

We had to go hunt down someone. So we finally got to someone and went in and, finally made a deal after hours of negotiation. My husband does his homework. He knows a lot. So, of course, they were getting aggravated because he knew what he knew and trying to get what he wanted to get. So after hours of negotiations, then we're told that the car is in service

because it has a flat tire and a blown fuse. Now, this is a brand new 2020. no barely any miles on it. So we left without a new car after purchasing the car. We were told we had to come get it. Now, this was actually on Memorial Day, so they told us to come back Tuesday to get the car, that the car would be ready. Now, this was after we had already, during the negotiation, I'm sorry, I missed a step.

They couldn't come up with a deal because they were getting aggravated. my husband wanted certain deals and they were like no that's not possible so we were leaving so then the salesman of course chased us down out in the car and they're like whatever we got to make this happen come back in we'll make it happen so we went in and then that's when we did finally do the deal and we couldn't take the car home so my husband went back up on Tuesday to get the car and um it was he noticed it was pulling to the right so Tuesday night he took the car back up. They said, okay, come back Thursday. So he went back up Thursday to pick it up when they called him. So my husband made the salesman drive. He's like, no, no, no,

you're driving. It did the same thing. So the salesman went in. And then, of course, my husband was a little bit upset. They had like five employees and salesmen, the regional manager, everybody in this glass room and so they come out and they said we're taking the car back you can't have the car now this is after we have purchased like it was a dumb deal interesting so my husband got upset and and he wanted our car back they gave us a hard time giving our trade back because we traded in our other PSL for it so my husband had to call the police and have the police come and they were mocking him for doing that. Oh, my.

And so the Sheriff's Office came, and, you know, then, of course, that was a done deal. And then we went to another local Kia dealer who treated us like gold. The guy there was wonderful. They gave us everything that, you know, my husband was saying with the sales that were on. And we ended up getting the car that we wanted, and they took really good care of us. Wow. It was just amazing. that you know my husband he works on cars and and he knew what was going on and they were just getting

so frustrated that he knew what he knew and they just wanted like just to get rid of us Michelle what you are do you care to mention the name of the offending dealer and the good dealer or maybe if you don't want to mention the offending dealer just give us the name of the good dealer so we can put a plug in for him absolutely and I'm happy you asked I was going to And my husband's like, well, just wait. I was getting ready to ask. Your fending dealer was North Lake Kia. Surprise, surprise.

The bad guys. Mr. Napleton, are you listening? Michelle, I think your husband was being penalized for having, shall we say, control. Knowledge is power, and he was in control. You both were. Amazing story. Well, let's got the other name. He had a good dealer.

Yes, please. I want to put it out there. because jean at greenway kia he took care of us he just he took care of us like we were king and queen they just went above and beyond they were wonderful we always deal with greenway now and for service for anything and i will tell you um my husband called corporate for kia and they were so appalled at everything that happened they gave us how many years I think three years worth of free service. Wow.

Amazing. We have a booklet that they sent us. They couldn't believe what happened. So we have that. We don't have to pay for any oil changes or anything. Yeah. So they did acknowledge that. Well, we're all sitting here with our miles open with your story.

And let's get the name of the good dealers again. Greenway Kia. Greenway Kia. Greenland. Yes. Greenland. They currently have a D-minus on our list, so we're going to have to go back. Yeah. Wow. Where are they located? I have heard callers calling.

You know, I, you know, I, they had to get a couple kudos because they really did. Everyone there, no one doubted, no one questioned, and they just really took good care of us. And every time we'd go back there. What a great story, Michelle. That's Greenland? Greenway. Greenway. Greenway. Greenway.

In Green Acres? It's in West Palm. We've mystery shopped them a few times. Yes. Go ahead, Ray. Just to throw a quick thought out, I always hear these stories all the time. Someone says, oh, it was just a blown fuse on my car.

It was just a blown fuse. Well, folks, from a mechanic's standpoint, keep one thing in mind. If a fuse blows, there's a reason why it blew. Something caused a fuse to blow. Fuses are not moving parts. They're not light bulbs. They don't do anything simply exist to protect it.

So ask why that fuse blew and say, hey, no, I'm not accepting that. Dig deeper. There's a problem that blew that fuse. See, they were buying a car, so they didn't have to figure that out. And they just wanted someone to treat them with courtesy, respect, and transparency. Absolutely. And that's the reason they left Naples. and they went to Greenway.

And the message to this, to the audience out there, you want to buy IKEA? Buy it from Greenway, Kia. Absolutely. And don't buy it from Napleson. Yeah. And thank you very much for your story, Michelle. Yeah.

We can't thank you enough, Michelle. So I'll be sending you that $50. So give me your contact information. You can send it to me at my email address. Okay. Yes, he gave me that at the beginning. Okay. Thank you so much, and have a great week.

I just wanted to add something really, really quick, just a funny little quirk to it. My husband was going down Beeline Highway, and there was a guy who had hit a deer. So my husband pulled over to help him with his dad, and it was the salesman. Wait, from Napleton or Greenway? From the Napleton.

Oh, that was karma. And they both were like, oh, it's you. That's not bad for the deer. And he said, I'm so sorry. I'm no longer with him. I'm so sorry. You can't make this stuff up. Oh, my goodness.

You did. I know. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Call again, please. And your husband, too. Great call.

I love yourself. I'm glad my husband hooked me on it. Thank you. Fabulous. Fabulous. Thank you, Michelle's husband. Okay. folks, 877-960-90-60.

What a story. Greenway Kia. The reason I kept asking about the Greenway, I haven't heard, because they're in green acres, and they decided to call themselves Greenway. I'll look it up for sure. I think it's just West Palm. It used to be West Palm. Yeah, yeah.

Got to get it right because it's hard to find a good Kia dealer. It's just West Palm. West Palm. It's on military. It's where West Palm. Palm care used to be. Amazing. Okay, folks, we're going to stay with the phones and we're going to talk to Bobby who's calling us from West Palm. Good morning, Bobby. Good morning, everybody. Nice to talk to you again. I was calling about Sun Passes today, which sort of it goes along with

automotive. I read this week that Sun Pass and Easy Pass are going to start working together in the near future, but you have to upgrade your SunPass, and then you can use it in easy pass dates, which is interesting. Right, SunPass Pro. Yes, SunPass Pro, exactly. But the reason I was calling about Sunpass is I had some service done on my car, and I had a loaner car, and I took my Sun Pass out of my car, because I knew I was going on in the turnpike and put it in the dash and used it and then about a month later i got a charge from the

dealer for $13 um and it was a sunpass charge as it turns out because um because the reader on the turnpike didn't read the sun pass and this this is really the point of my call if you're in a car that's not registered to a particular sun pass and you go through the a reader, or if you try to beat the system, or if you go through and the reader doesn't read your sun pass, it automatically charges, it makes a charge for the maximum toll, whatever that may be. So if you were getting on at Southern and getting off at GTA, it's about a dollar or something like that. But if it doesn't read your sun pass, it will charge you $13, which is the toll to go up to Orlando.

Wow. And I've talked to Sunpass about that. It's sort of it's meant to catch the people who are trying to cheat the system, but it penalizes the user if SunPass readers aren't working. And they know certain readers in certain spots aren't reliable.

But it continues on. And if you don't, if you call them and tell them, they will knock that charge right off but you've got to call otherwise they charge $13 and a lot of people are just getting charged because they don't notice it

and they're making the fortune we probably need to get the name of the division in Florida that is which agency is responsible and get through to somebody in charge because it needs to be corrected Florida Department of Transportation

yeah the newest thing they're doing now are these like i guess they're frameworks that go over the turnpike and there's several of them now just between lakeworth road and north lake i know that when you go under it it's taking a picture of your car and reading your sun pass so you're not going to have the on and off charges anymore it's going to be where we see you on the turnpike they're going to track what you're where you're driving you know how how far you're driving on the turnpike at various points along the way yes there's several of them up according to bob and bobby's point of course is this is uh an overcharge that's being made if you don't have the car registered in the name of

the sun pass that you're driving and that's purely wrong needs to be corrected yeah and uh let's uh we'll try to follow up on that bobby see if we can't get some action what one little one little I don't know how you go about checking it. I use the turnpike occasionally, and I can go online and look. And what I do is I just look for $13, I just look for, you know, $10 or $13 charges that are much larger than just traveling around town. But for people who use the turnpike all the time, I mean, it's just a voluminous amount of information that's sort of hard to filter.

And they get away with it. Yeah. Just beware as just another thing to beware of. Yeah, they get you. I'll tell you what, with our, with the new online, everything is online, everything is coming in a statement from your credit cards and everything else. It's awfully hard to keep track everything. I mean, really speaking personally, I'm always looking,

half the time I'm saying, Nancy, did you buy something for this amount of money? It'll appear on our credit card. It's hard to stay on top of. There's a lot of fraud out there because people know you can't pay attention to everything. Yep, I agree with you. Well, I love the show. Let's do it all the time. Thanks, Mommy.

All again. Great talking to you. And thanks, Bobby. I just upgraded my Sunpass to a Sunpass Pro account. Say that twice. Okay, we have a great mystery shopping report. coming up from H. Greg Nissan at the half hour. So stay with us. And, you know, I just fell upon Napleton's North Lake Kia from last week. And boy, I'll tell you what, after hearing Michelle's story,

they are the bad boys. And unfortunately, there's more than just one dealership that, well, qualifies for bad boy. And that's why we need your help. You know, we do these mystery shopping reports every week, but we need your help. We need the consumers out there to join Earl's vigilantes. You don't have to be able to take an engine apart, but just, you know, help us, help the people in your community. I got my vigilante at on. Yeah, you can go out and you can put your expertise to work and help us with these, well, these bad boys

so Earl on cars you can go there for Earl's vigilantes get a free hat also you can go yeah we've got hats and some other things that are coming we also are looking for volunteers that will help some of our

seniors as they go through the internet you know there's some of us that aren't as savvy and if we can help them you can go to Earl on cars and to sign up there to become a volunteer. 877960, or you can text us.

We've got YouTube, we got Facebook, we got it all. And ladies and gentlemen, I have to take a moment, and thank you for joining us every morning because you are an important part of the show. So that's the update. Back to Stu. I got texts. I got stuff.

He's got text. I am writing this on the 22nd. Hopefully it will be on the 29th program, and it is. Today is May 29th, 2021. I have a 2010 Prius, and the battery went dead because I left the four-way flashers on. Well, with that, I could not open the trunk. So I googled how to jump a Prius from the front of my car, and the answer is locate your fuse box, look for the red cover,

lift it up, connect your red cable to it, find a good ground source, and you will be able to start your car. car, and that's from Jim in Riviera Beach. I'll pass it over to Rick to say, is that sound right? Exactly. Okay, explain that again. So basically, if you can't get into the vehicle, you can still jump it by... Well, the 12-volt battery is in the back, in the passenger side rear corner, and the hatch

is electric. So if the battery's dead, you can't open the hatch to get to the battery. So what you do is you open the front hood, and by the driver's side headline, you know, just behind it is a fuse block. You take the black plastic cover off of it and you'll see a little red cover that can kind of flip over. It's on a hinge.

And there's a bolt there. It's actually a little flat piece of metal panel that sticks up. You connect the positive side of the jumper cables there and the negative just goes to any good ground bolt and you can jumpstart the car

so if you need to just jump start it to get yourself somewhere or it'll also give you enough power that you can then open the rear hatch to get to the battery. Very good. Thank you, Jim, and Revere Beach. And, Jim, you can save a fortune because, see, Rick would have got paid for doing that. It was you would have called the dealership, and we'd have probably had the car towed and come in there.

Rick would have gone out there. And $300 later, you would have had, you went to YouTube. It doesn't judge anything. You know, two folks, we're all working together. We're working as a team. And where else could you go? But Rick needs some business. So don't use YouTube all the time.

Call Rick occasionally. That's an extremely dangerous operation, right? You could, like, burn your hair off if you do that. You can do that. You actually could cause the universe to tilt on its edge. And you notice how long it took Rick to describe what the caller described in about 10 seconds. Right. That's because he gets paid by the hour.

Exactly. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I'm only kidding you, Rick. I'm only kidding you. Okay. It is a truism that YouTube and the. the internet can save you a ton of money when you're fixing your car.

Absolutely. I mean, especially if you have a little bit of a do-it-yourself in you, not me. I'm helpless. I call Rick, even with YouTube, because I don't know. Wait a minute. I can't. I don't know. I think I could open my hood.

Hey, you call me. I call Nancy. Well, honestly, Rick is hurting himself. His video that he did on how to free a lock steering wheel. I think it's approaching a million views. And twice already just during the show, I get the comments on the YouTube videos thanking Rick for saving their lives. It's hilarious. They come in every day.

I was in a Target parking lot. I thought I was stuck here all night. You saved my life. It's great. You're doing a service and costing yourself money. We need to discuss the royalty checks on that one. There you go. We haven't monetized yet.

We're getting there. Jonathan's working on it. Okay. Rick, yay. Okay, folks, we are going to go to our first. But you forgot. We're going to go to our first. On the new YouTube's royalty for Rick.

There we go. You can retire. What was that? I think we've already had a female caller. We have. Yes. Yeah. We have.

Okay, we're going to go to Betty, who's a first-time caller, and she's calling us from Indian Town. Good morning, Betty. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Well, thank you. I was calling about

the problem with tires on my car We appreciated the fact that we got new tires When the other ones wore out Through Earl Stewart But we didn't appreciate the fact that nobody told us We could upgrade the tires When we got them Because the tires they put on

It's like driving on square tires And on top of that On top of that One of the tires keeps losing air and I bring it in for service, and they say, oh, it's losing air because they automatically lose air. But the point is, in 5,000 miles, I have to add air to the same tire, four or five times. There's something wrong with the tire. Well, Betty, you're absolutely right.

And we forgot to tell you that round tires are more expensive. And so we gave you the square tires. We didn't think you'd notice. I'm only kidding. Betty Ellen, thank you for being the first. first-time caller. You won yourself $50 before we get to the meet of the conversation. I think Rick can answer the question. I can answer the question. And no, no, seriously, what we do in our free tire program is to try to put the best tires we can on the car

because we look at them as our tires. And if they wear out too soon, then we have to buy another set of tires. So sometimes we get tires that are not what you wanted or we want it, and we certainly will adjust that for you. The good tires, as people tend to think, are the name brand tires. We do a lot of research. We do consumer reports, and we look at a lot of different tires, and there's a lot of criteria. And some of the tires that are the best value in the best tires are not the name brands like Michigan. and Goodyear and Firestone. There are a lot of Chinese tires. There's a lot of other make tires that are quality tires. Rick? Some of the best ones that we put on lately, and I judge them

myself by how much weight is required to balance the wheel with the new tire. The lower amount of weight, to me, the better to the tire. Kumo and Toyo are both excellent tires. So, Betty, we'll take care of that for you, and thanks for the call. I appreciate your letting us know and you let us know when you can bring the car in and we'll get your tires fixed well i appreciate them you're very welcome you're welcome you're welcome michel spread the word tell your friends uh we have two new lady callers every saturday morning and we give them 50 betty from indiantown thank you very much and please call again i will thank you you're welcome okay okay i think we're going to go back to

Yep. Interesting question. Rick, if someone brought in an EV electric vehicle to your shop for repairs, to what extent would you be qualified to work on that car, and at what point would you have to recuse yourself? If it's pretty much anything to do with the electrical system, the actual computer control portion of the electric motors and the battery, I would pass on that. If it's, they got a headlight out, they got a brake light out, they need tires, any brakes, all the other stuff. Window motors, anything else,

alignments, all of that stuff is the same technology. When it comes to the actual drive system itself, unless it's something that I would feel very, very confident playing with, and a lot of that I would not. I would say, no, this needs to go back to the manufacturer, to Tesla, or whatever the main manufacturer is. Now, however, if on the rare case, somebody actually, which this has happened twice now, they brought in an electric RAV-4, which were supposed to be only California,

but a few of them have made it here, yeah, I would figure out how to do it. There we go. Hey, can you fix the windshield wiper fluid squatter on the Tesla I'm driving? Yeah. It shoots it clear over the top of the car. Oh, not a problem. Let me jump in there, and here's a good message for the listening audience in this conversation. The manufacturers do require their technicians to pass tests and qualify before they work on a particular type of car.

Rick has to have hybrid qualifications because there are a lot of hybrids being sold by Toyota, and other manufacturers do. And an all-electric vehicle, that would be the same thing. If it were a Chevrolet bolt, they would have a class of the Chevrolet, General Motors, Chevrolet, technician had to go through. So when you take your car in, be it a hybrid, all-electric, or turbocharged, they're unique vehicles out there, diesels. You want to be sure that your technician that's going to work on your car is qualified. And there's a number of different measures that you can go by, manufacture qualifications, the ASE qualifications. Be sure that you're working on transmission to see ASC qualified on transmissions. So a technician is not just a technician.

They all have different expertise and abilities and experience. Get yourself a good one, very important. That's right. All right. This one's for you, Earl. Earl, what is your explanation for the surge in car sales? I'm having a hard time reconciling extreme inventory shortages and all-time high prices with such high level of sales,

especially considering your advice about waiting until things cool down and prices. settle. No offense, but the same thought must have occurred to millions of other people. I don't know. Obviously, there are millions more who just don't care about how much they are being asked to pay. Well, a lot of people are not aware of how much they're being asked to pay, and that's always been true. Your educated consumers that listen to this show, we always say we're preaching to the choir, they have a pretty good idea of how much they're paying. So unfortunately, there's a large group of people out there that are paying a lot.

and they don't know it. And then there are people that are paying a lot and they do know it. As far as the supply and demand, they are not mutually exclusive. You can have high prices and high demand and high volume. It just means you're selling cars that you wouldn't normally otherwise sell. And when inventories get very, very low, whether it's at the grocery store, or at the car dealership, you find people buying cars they wouldn't otherwise buy. I wouldn't recommend you do that. Pick the car that you think you should buy and then negotiate and shop and compare and get as good a price as you can afford.

But just don't go out there and buy a car for the sake of buying a car. You'll be miserable. But you're right. It is peculiar. The prices are high and volume is high and profits are high. And it keeps on going. going. I think you kind of touched on something there. Not everybody's as dialed in as we are on the show or these listeners to our show. Clearly, we're a select group of people who find this interesting. And so most people are going about their lives.

They're not reading automotive news and, you know, and hearing about this stuff. A lot of, I mean, some that's making into mainstream media, but, you know, the average person just living their lives aren't like industry experts. What's that, Rick? Well, there's also the factor that for a lot of people, you know, they're buying cars, maybe once every four, five, six years. Good point. Or if you're like me, it's more like 15 to 16, 17 years. Yeah, what happened to 12 years?

You know, so it's a lot of folks, they don't think about this until that time comes. And it's been a long time since they bought a car. So they've got to, you know, unfortunately either really step up and do their homework and pay attention. Yeah. And there's so many avenues for them to look into, you know, between, uh, Costco Consumer Report, True Car, I could, you know, name, it's a long list. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, all of this right here is very unusual. It's called free information.

Give us a call toll free at 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-60. We're going to go to Bob, who's been holding. Thanks for your patience, Bob. Bob's giving us a call from Boca. Good morning. How are you? We're well, thank you. You have a question about your lease? Yes, my lease is ending in... Oh, great.

And based on what I can tell, my buyout value is about $3,000 to $5,000 more than its value if I were to sell it to somebody like CarMax or something like that. Now, my wife wants a different vehicle, so we're thinking of leveraging it and getting a new lease. But the question is, do I need to actually buy my car max? current vehicle and sell it to realize the gain or is there way I can negotiate it with the new lease. Well, you can, how many months do you have remaining on your lease? It's less than a week. Oh, well, you know, you can, what you have to do now is establish the exact

profit you can make because you're not going to be able to buy for exactly the residual amount. Unfortunately, especially in Florida, the dealers. will take advantage of the fact that you are exercising that, and they will add fees, profit to themselves unnecessarily and I think unwarranted and it should be illegal, but they

do it. So you need to take, you need to look at more than one dealer that will take your car back. In other words, what make are you driving? It's an ACRA T.L. Yeah. I take that to

at least, I talked to three ACRA deals, and I would discuss the returning of the lease car. I would get to the end of the numbers and say, I want to exercise my purchase price. And you'll know your residual value. You'll say, how much in addition to my residual value are you adding to this cost? Because that's where I'm going to exercise my option. If the Acre dealer, they will give me the fewest add-ons.

And that will establish your true value. that you'll be able to take and flip the car, sell it for market value, make a profit, and put that against the next car that you want to lease. Okay, let me ask this question, because I called Honda, and they told me a number, including taxes. I'm a Honda, yeah. Okay. Did you call more than one Honda dealer?

No, it's Honda Credit for that. Oh, Honda Credit, okay. Honda Finance it. Okay, you have to buy it. be the number. You have to buy it through the dealer. So the dealer that you got from Honda, the price you got from Honda is a residual.

Now you have to find out from a Honda dealer what they're going to add to that. Accurate dealer. Accurate, I'm sorry, I'm on you. Okay, so even though Honda on the phone said all I needed to do is pay X amount of dollars and it was mine, I still have to go back to the dealer? The dealer has to

handle the sale, yes. Honda credit. Well, Leasing cannot sell you the car because Honda leasing can't sell to an individual, only car dealers can. So that's a loophole in the law for the dealers, and they use that loophole to add and make a profit of this car that you should be able to buy just for the residual. And you're reduced to finding the dealer that will give you the lease additional cost that they shouldn't be charging in the first place. So you might find out that Ed Morris Honda will only charge.

you $1,000 more than the residual, but Del Rey Honda will charge you... Or Napolton, Accura. We'll charge you... Accura. I'm sorry, I keep saying Honda. Acura dealer. You have to find

out the accurate dealer that will charge you the least more. And it'll probably be... It's probably going to be right around $1,000 over the residual value. And you probably won't find a Honda dealer that'll do much better than that, but you should check around.

Okay. And Let me ask you to say the Boca area based on your rating, what ACR dealer would you recommend? Well, I'll go to our good dealer, bad dealer list real quick and see what we got. We don't have a ton of them because there's not that many Accur dealers, but we have, I'm sorry, we have no help for you. The only one we have on our list is Napleton's Palm Beach Accura, and they have an F on our rating. Well, just Google Accurator dealers. And call. Yeah, even if you have to call one in Fort Lauderdale,

you might be able to get the one locally to say, okay, we'll meet that price. Because if they're not stupid, they want to be on fairly good terms with you, even though you're exercising. You're driving an Acura. You like the Accura. You're exercising and your purchase. If you buy that, you might buy another Accuror. So the informed Accu dealers will maybe consider giving you cutting the price.

So go to Google, get three or four Accurie dealers, call them, see what the best deal is, and then use that to negotiate the price that you should be able to buy for at the residual and get the best deal you can. All right. Thank you for your time. Welcome, Bob. Thank you very much. You're welcome. We're going to go to Frank, who gives us a call from Jupiter Farms.

Good morning, Frank. Welcome back. Well, good morning. I have not been calling in, but I have been listening before, so I haven't abandoned you. Have a lot going on. Here's a question for you guys. We're kind of shopping for a car. We really don't need a car, but my girlfriend, who is now my fiancé, would like to get rid of her 2008 Lexus.

She's had RX-3.50 cents brand new. It's been in your shop. Randy knows about the car. Everyone knows about it. The car is running fine. There's no issues, but she's just in the mood for a new SUV. And here's where the story comes in for a little more pertinent. She found an X-3 BMW over Brayman.

It's the competition one, the M model. So they're pricey. We looked at a brand new one. The salesperson was very front. He says, you don't want to buy a brand new one because you lose too much on like an AMG or an M or one of the high-price models of those cars the first year or two, wait until one comes in. So lo and behold, just a few minutes ago, we got a call that they just took a 2020 X3M. back from a lease that was upgraded

from an X3 to an X7 and it hasn't even made the paperwork yet. How much can we expect that it should came off the sticker price from being in service for a little over a year? It's the 2020 10,000 miles. You have to be real

careful, Frank. Because of the high price of used cars today there are actually cases where used cars are selling for the same price for even more than the equivalent new model. The name of the game, but the car dealers, they're going to sell the car for as much as they can get. And when there's a shortage, used and new, they're getting a lot of money for both.

You should always come look at, negotiate and go to Bremen and go to two other Honda. I mean, BMW dealers, still talking Honda. You got Honda on your mind this morning. Yeah, and try to get the lowest price on the new BMW as well as compare it with the one that they price they gave you on the use. The gap will be a lot narrower than it ever was. I mean, typically on a deal like that, you'd probably save several thousand dollars on the new car. I'd be surprised today if you're saving more than about a thousand. And so you're going to pay too much for the used car and you're going to pay too much for the new car and that's just the

way it is. Yeah. No, actually, we came across a couple, just, you know, if we have, we actually one day we were between doctors and we stopped to the Mercedes dealership over there near North Lake and they had a beautiful AMG in their mark down like 40 something thousand from the list price and it was certified and all that but it just didn't have anyway it was it was nice but it just didn't fit and they sold it the very next day I mean it didn't last long nothing's lasting but um like you know we we talked and he said well you know we got three cars I got a Mercedes of King Ranch pickup truck and we got her, whatever the hell is.

2008. Which everything works. It's like we don't really need a car, but it's kind of fun to look at him and see. But, yeah, we'll see what the guy, we're going to go in later and see if he really is true about that. You'll save so much money from buying one new. Oh, sure. I mean, you never know. Car dealers make mistakes, too. You know, as a car dealer, sometimes we sell cars too cheap.

And then you feel bad about it because, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the car dealers. Somebody says, the salesman, you know, you could have got another $1,000 for that car. And he feels bad about it. So, yeah, it's keep trying. The one that works the hardest, we'll get the lowest price. It just won't be as low a price as you get a year from now. Yeah, yeah. No, it's actually true.

And we were just, it's funny, we just had mentioned that like yesterday. And then we get this call from this guy with this carrot sitting down there. It's actually the color we like, the equipment we like, is everything that we were actually looking for. But again, it's all going to boil down to what the price is. But I appreciate guys taking the call. Thanks, Frank. And my son is enjoying the truck, by the way. Great.

From you guys. He laminated. He should have got the tire, I guess, protection package. Because I guess for whatever reason, one tire went and he had to replace a whole tire and then another flat tire. I said, oh, well, such is his life. The wrist. You can't look in your rearview mirror. you've got to take a look on that windshield.

But you guys have a great... You know how to keep those kids on track. That's for sure, Frank. You have a lot of interesting stories to share with us. Okay. Thanks for joining us this morning. We haven't heard from you in a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. Have a great weekend. We're actually, it's leachies season. If you like leachies, I'll bring you some by your dealership. Look at it. Looking forward to it. We've got 20 trees. All right.

Bring us a basket. Bring us a basket. Take care, guys. Thanks, Frank. I haven't come out to Jupiter Farms near Burt Reynolds Ranch. Okay. Got to get a free advertisement? All right, there you go.

See you guys. Thank you. Bye, bye. Thanks, Frank. You're welcome. We have frozen the lines, and we are frozen them. We're frozen them. Lines are frozen.

Anyway, for lack of another word, we are going to be going to our mystery shopping report in just a bit, which is just a bit right now, that is a mystery shop from H. Greg, Nissan. I hope we have time for a couple of texts. Oh, okay. We're going to go back to Stu. Yeah, they started piling up here. I'll go through them pretty quick. Jim and Pomech Gardens shared a screenshot.

I'll just read it of an attempt to purchase from Napleton North Lake eight months ago. And it's just a glimpse of the fees. We haven't seen some of these things, even on our mystery shopping reports. They added $5,553 in hidden fees that included a $800 tracking system, Napleton VIP for $1,960. We've seen that before. Reconditioning charge, so I'm assuming this is on a used car. Reconitioning charge of $1,895 plus an $899 dealer fee.

And then he added, of course, they held my car keys. And incidentally, he followed up, he says, they gave him off from $10,000 for his trade that the other, dealers had offered him $15,000 to $17,000. So they're going for all the money there. They're going to get all that money. Oh, dear money. I know.

Let's see what else we got here. Here we go. I can't wait until you expand your mystery shopping to other industries. Please send Agent Lightning to rooms to go. We are not experts when it comes to furniture. So we don't know what's going to happen. We're victims when it comes to furniture shopping probably. I should be more missed for shopping a bowl.

They're fun. They're fun and they're informative. There should be a bunch of shows like this. Yeah, actually, there should be, you know, Earl on couches. Yeah. Earl on Ottomans. All right, let's see. We haven't gotten to anonymous feedback, so I'll just go through as rapid fire as I can.

It's a short mystery shopping report. Question for Rick. Have you heard about catastrophic engine failures on both the Silverado and Ford pickup trucks, including also Nader carriage mechanical failures of the undercarriage of the Ford pickup trucks. People are documenting it all over the Internet, including YouTube. It looks really bad for American-made trucks. All these failures are occurring at very low mileage between 5,000 and 20,000 miles.

I had not heard about this. No, I'm unaware. I'm going to have to do some homework on that. But, you know, I'm curious, though, if they're having engine problems between Ford's and Chevys, because those are two completely different manufacturers for all their parts. They don't even, I can't imagine they would even share the same engine block. You know, I think maybe something that Earl said kind of made somebody upset because this could be the same person. Says, Earl, how can you say most new cars are reliable and we'll go several hundred thousand miles? All long-term mechanics know only Toyotas and Hondas are that reliable.

Ford is having a boatload of issues with their trucks and Chevy issues as well, but not as many as Ford. Maybe the old 90s models were comparable with reliability, but no new car can match Toyota and Honda. Even Subaru has ongoing head gasket and transmission issues. So we have a big old Toyota in Honda family. That's just not true. I mean, there are, see, first of all, you're making it into. the make and then you have to break it down by model you can take almost any make car and you'll find models in there that stand out you can go to consumer reports they'll recommend the model

of a particular manufacturer and maybe it's the only model they recommend but it's complex it's not simple you can't say all fords are good and all shettys are bad or all toilets are good and all both this is not true that's right consumer reports breaks it down and If you look at the average reliability and cost of operation, everything else of a car today compared with 20 years ago, they're all much better. It's all relative. I mean, fiats are even better.

I choke when I say that. But they're better than they were 20 years ago. I mean, I can't believe how bad they were then, but they're still pretty bad today. Everything's relative. Continuing on with the theme. However, Yugo never made a good car. They didn't make it long enough.

What were your thoughts? This is, I think, it's going to be the same guy. I don't know. What are your thoughts on the 70s, 80s, and early 90s Mercedes? And how did they compare to Toyota? Do you know how consumer reports rated these cars back in comparison to Toyota for liability? Did you ever sell this era of Mercedes on your lot or own or drive them? I drove a Mercedes.

Stu's mother gave me a Mercedes. On your 40th birthday? My 40th birthday from my middle life crisis. No, you got that backwards. No, no. She got you a Porsche. A Porsche. You got her a Mercedes.

I must have got myself a Mercedes. The point being, my grandma drove one. Mercedes go in cycles. They have good years and bad years. Lexus goes in cycles. Good years and bad years. All the manufacturers.

There's been no manufacturer, Toyota included, Honda included, that doesn't have cycles. And the good thing about competition, when Honda has a good year and Toyota has a bad year, Toyota gets their attention, and they get smart. And then the next thing you know, they build a better car and Honda doesn't have it.

You know, that's the way it goes. So the whole world of automobiles is far better today and reliable than ever before. All right. Last one, we get on the mystery shocking report. This is for Rick 2010 Sienna Front Wheel Drive. I hear clicking on the from the car when I crank the wheel. What could be causing this? What are the major issues with the car and common issues with this model?

When does the transmission fluid need to be changed on this car? timing belt car has 245,000 kilometers on it where are you and so what does it need now in the next 50,000 kilometers timing belt is generally recommended around 100,000 miles I'd have to run the conversions for that for kilometers however the clicking noise if you're hearing it up in the steering column area inside the car I would be looking at what's called the intermediate shaft which is one of the connection shafts in the steering column if you're hearing it outside and say you're basically turn it you've got the wheel turned all the way one

direction or so and you're accelerating starting to hit the gas a little bit and you're click click click it's most likely a drive axle now the easiest way to find out that is simply get in a parking lot turn the wheel all the way one direction go forwards and backwards and then the other direction and whatever side is clicking, that's the axle you need to replace. Here we go. Mr. Shop of H. Gregg, Nissan. Three years ago, we learned about H. Craig from one of our listeners, Frank and Jupiter Farms.

Right, and we just spoke to Frank. Hey, Frank, thank. I hope you still listen. This is for you, Frank. We mystery shopped them a few times since. The first time back in 2018, they did pretty well. The second time, they failed a tecotta test. Despite the mixed results, we put them on our recommended dealer list.

until last year we thought H. Craig was just a chain of used car stores. On our last mystery shop, we learned that H. Craig was in the new car business, too. In 2019, they opened their first new car dealership in the United States, in Delray Beach, H. Craig, Nissan. Probably one of the largest mistakes they ever made. Was that that? And why they bought a Nissan store back then? I don't know. A year later, they acquired Kendall, Needs.

on another mistake. They can't help themselves. I can't help themselves. I form an automation store. Should have told you something. They're buying everything when they're selling something. H. Craig may be a serious up-and-comer in the retail car business. They're doing something smart online marketing and they came across cutting edge and progressive, okay? So that was in the retail, in the retail car business. H. Craig's website is oppressive, modern, sophisticated, and it says all the right things, very consumer-friendly. They boast about a seven-day exchange policy,

albeit not a return policy. Huge difference, by the way. Exchange is BS, and it just means that they can give you another vehicle for the one that you didn't like, but they can charge you anything they want for it. What good is that? They might as well not have it.

Exchange policies are just silly. They do have a separate return policy within seven days, but listen to this. restocking fee $7%. Now that's more money than they made when they sold you the first car. Happy to do it.

The average new car is $40,000. $7% of that is $2,800. And the average profit's $2,000. The average profit is $2,000. They're preying. They're praying that you ask to bring the car back. Return it, please. Yeah, please.

Like their used car locations, age Craig, Nissan, professors be, a one-price dealership. Oh, here we go. One price, all right? A lot of people professed to be one-price. When we tested this at the West Palm Beach used car location in 2018,

they held true to their claim at the used car location. When we last mystery shop, H. Craig, Nissan, it was mid-pandemic. We anticipated some bad behavior. Instead, Agent Thunder reported surprisingly tolerable experience and H. Greg Nissan was given to see

on good dealer, baddealer list.com. That was the highest grade of any Nissan dealer on the list. As we've seen week after week, the weird economic times that we're in has inspired

some of the most extreme car dealer behavior we've ever seen. We've seen bad car dealer get worse and even good car dealers go bad. I mean, it's just disruptive. The whole industry has been disrupted. We sent Agent Lightning industry,

see if H. Craig Nissan could maintain its C average, C grade, which was very good, because we grade on the curve. Here's the report. I'm Agent Lightning. I took my 13-year-old daughter along for today's mission to H. Craig, Nissan deal right boy. She takes her husband, she takes her mother, her kids. I love it. And this is really cool because it's so real. It looks real, yeah. It does, yeah. When we arrived, we part and began to browse the meager selection on the new Nissan's on the lot. Not many cars in stock these days, although there is

one car, they're advertising, they have a huge inventory, and they're lying. Isn't that funny how they're... It's surprising. Anything you can do to get them in the... We found a new 2021 Nissan Ultimate S.L with an MSRP of 32-175.

It was refreshingly, no addendum. There's a plus. While we're looking at the Ultima, we're approached by a friendly salesperson named Frank Brank complimented our taste in cars and asked if I was interested in driving anything. I told him I settled on the Ultima S.S.L.

S. L. And asked if you could get the keys to the white one. He said, no problem. Asked for my driver's license. Frank was back in five minutes. We all got in the car for a test drive. Along the way, my daughter really helped our cover by enthusiastically fawning over the car.

Oh, Mom, I love this. I love this car. I Frank focused on safety as we would know the car's feature, perhaps homing in on the daughter, the child must be protected, and he politely answered all of our questions. Whenever he returned to the dealership, he asked my daughter if she liked it, and she was ready to take it home. Ah, smart guy. Trial clothes with the kid.

And listen to Frank, this salesperson is very sharp. Listen carefully. He gets smarter as we go along. We went inside, found a desk, waited while Frank spoke with his manager, gone a long time. I think Agent Lightning is a little sticky on time. She always complains about the time. She's focused on it. Over 15 minutes we begin to get frustrated. So

that's Agent Lightning for you. Just as about ready to get up and try to find him, Frank came back with very sparse-looking worksheet. The top line was the net selling price. $29.175. A $3,000 discount off MSRP. Now,

that's a good start. To that they added a $999, dock fee, hidden, a $399 electronic filing fee, hidden fee, an $89 tag agency fee, hidden fee, and sales tax, that's legit. And additional fees, they're legit, I believe, $8.50. The out-the-door price was $33, $155. Frank says, don't quote me on this, but I believe we can do 0% for 16 months on this. He asked me

what I thought, I said I had hoped that that being a memorial day weekend, I could get a much better deal. I hope to get under $30,000 out the door. Remember, this is a one-price dealer. I said that the 0%

for 60 months sounded good, though, and Frank quickly corrected that the price with 0% would be $1,000 higher. I couldn't combine the incentives. I told Frank, that he was confusing me. He asked me what number I needed to be at

so he could work his boss. I said he needed to get me to $29,000 out the door. Frank really put on a show about having to go to his boss. He said, all right, give me a minute. I know he's going to be pissed, but too bad. Why would he say that?

I'm here to fight. He's good, though. He's good. He read everything, and he knows that he's going to be on the buyer's side, against the boss. That's an old... Triangulation. Yeah, triangulation.

Is that what they call it? Yeah. Frank asked me to sign a paper to indicate I do business at $29,000 out the door. I don't like that, but it's fitting in with the flow here.

So there he goes. It only took a few minutes for him to return with a grim look on his face. And he's an actor. He's a good actor. He said his manager lost it. Told him to recommend

the trim level down from the SL. Surprising he didn't say she can't afford this car. The Altam SV the worksheet had a big X through the model info and a hand-ridden SV was crawled in ballpoint pen. What's S-Fee

mean? That's the trim level. He's basically she can't have the SL she's going to get the SV. I told Frank I didn't want the SV. I was willing to pay a little more for the S.L. I asked him if thought his manager would meet me in the middle, say 31,000 out the door.

Frank tried again. This time, he came back and asked if I could raise my sights a little and do $32,000 out the door. Now I ask you to remember again, this is a one-price dealer. I said I would, Frank, would ask me to sign again.

He was back with a fresh work seat. 31-199 out the door. Boy, we're hagglin and we're asking, we're rocking, we're rolling. He asked if we had a deal. I said, we did and thanked him. I told him I needed if that's your one price

we're on price dealer there's a one price it takes us a while but here's your one price I told him I take my daughter to get us somebody to eat and we were returned the afternoon to take delivery

and if you believe that Frank I believe that you're a one price dealer ain't going to happen.com we left okay Appleog absolutely shocking no bait and switch no pressure No price gousing, but did lie about being a one-price dealer.

I hesitated to include that because technically devolated their own policy, so that's dishonest. But at least they came down instead of raising the price. That's a better way to violate a one-price policy in the favor of the customer. So there we are. There we are with a big mistake that H. Gregg made buying a new vehicle dealer. And when you buy a new car dealership, you realize that it's a lot more. frightening and difficult to stick to one price because all new Nissan Ultima SVs cost the dealer exactly the same thing and so therefore they can

sell it for exactly the same thing and if you tell all the competitors what this one dealer will sell it for it's so easy for them to cut the price a little bit and then you lose the sale so So when H. Gregg said we're going to be one price on the new car, they were thinking of themselves, it works real good on used cars, but with used car, you have the old, you know, every used car is different. And that's true. So you can manipulate and you can convince the buyer that he should pay more for a used car. You can't do that on a new car.

H. Craig found out the hard way. They just didn't want to admit they're not going to do it anymore, and so they're lying. but we're great on the curve they're beginning to come in we have Bob on Facebook gives them a D Mark said D and then added Nissan sucks it's still a little editorial Jonathan Wellington it gives them a B minus not great but a passing grade and then a Bob tech another Bob Texan C I'm going to raise we have them on the on the list with a C right now they did violate the one-price thing, but they did it in the favor of the customer. I'm going to raise them to a C-plus.

Sounds reasonable. I've got Andrew with a C-minus. Tom, out-the-door grade D, too many fees in old-school tactics. I'd be out-the-door as well. Mark Smith with a C-minus. Ernesto, suggested MSRG, the Mystery Shop Report guide, or grade. Document fee, C-M-M-M-A-M-M-M-A. grading fees C minus out-the-door grade C-minus Tim with a C

Wayne with a C-minus and for me I'm gonna follow that trend with a C I'm gonna say hey you know there if you do your homework I think you can be safe get a reasonable price for today's world today's market yeah and Nagan with a D plus people yeah that's that's key going in with knowledge Boy, I'll tell you what, these car dealers. I'm going to give them a D. Okay. I'm going to go with Stu on a C-plus.

We have to remember that it is a curve, and we're shopping largely new car dealers. And in terms of new car dealers, they're definitely above average. And for a Nissan dealer, they're definitely, definitely above average. So we'll keep them on there, give them a C-plus. and you know I can chastise them verbally about the one price why don't you just say we're not one price anymore and then it's kind of like these dealers that charge small dealer fees why it's like Elon Musk and Tesla $1,300 on an expensive car like a Tesla it's not worth it including the price that you advertise and do the same thing with the with a new car okay I think Stu do you have any more Yeah, there's one that came in if we can squeeze in.

I miss this one. Steve on Facebook has a question. He says, we had a leak in a power steering hose in our Ford Edge. The fix was pretty expensive. I also know how much should it cost? Do you know, Rick? Like a power steering hose. That's going to depend on the model a whole lot.

I'm not super familiar with the edge. The part price probably $100 to $150, depending on what hose it is. But some of those can be really difficult to get it changed out. How many hours, like in a Toyota, would that be called for? I, again, if it's... Depends on the manufacturing. One line on the car could be 15 minutes to change it, and another one, some of the way they run, four to five hours. Bob, I'd maybe make a couple of calls and shop it around, or I don't know if you already did it and paid for it, but it sounds like there's a pretty big range on potential costs for that.

Yeah, remember that you have a right to a written estimate, and they can only vary in Florida. I don't know about other states. In Florida, you get a written estimate. So always get the estimate and writing, and that way you can shop and compare it. I mean, perfect way to get the best price. And you don't have to take it to a dealer. A power steering hose is something that is fairly basic.

And you get a price of the hose. You get a price of the repair. You get three or four quotes. And you'll get a really good deal. Check a couple of the independent shops. Places like PEP Boys are pretty good, but also check the shops and check their information online for what people say about them for reviews. If you get a whole bunch of different people saying, yeah, this place is really worthwhile, it's worth checking out.

You know, one thing I haven't tried doing, and we should do this, is Google cost of repairs. You know, you might be able to Google cost of the repair on a fire steering and see what, and maybe chat room somewhere. to see what the prices are. Forum sites, for me, are a fantastic source of information. The different car owners will all get together on these forum sites, and you'll have guys in there that guys and ladies actually that are incredibly knowledgeable, especially about that particular making model.

It's like Ford Forum, Chevrolet Forum, Toyota Forum. Exactly. And it even comes down to model specific, like the Toyota Tacoma. I love reading the forums on those. That's really. So F-O-R-U-M, so you could just put the make of the car ahead of it, and almost all manufacturers have that? Every manufacturer for almost anything. Is that right? It's amazing. It's also organically grown, just like fans and consumers that put these together.

It's kind of like, remember the Prius chat forum, it became huge, really promoted Rick's epic trip up to D.C. all those years ago. And that spontaneously, organically formed with Prius fans, and it became a huge source of referring for sales, finding the good dealers that weren't gouging, and also mechanical issues. So, yeah, they sprung up all over the place. So there's probably people with a Ugo forum out there. Yeah.

You know, there's so much information out there. We're going to be out of business. Exactly. If people, you know, Rick will be out of business. No, no, we condense it. What we do, we summarize, condense, and present it in bite-sized chunks for listeners. We're making ourselves obsolete.

Exactly. Yeah. Followers. I think we're all through. We are, definitely. Steve, that was an interesting comment that you made. He said that Northern New Jersey has a lot of Tesla's a whole lot. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars.

We're happy you could spend the morning with us. Stay tuned next week. We'll be right back here. And have a great Memorial Day weekend. Let's go.