Earl Stewart on Cars - 05.31.2025 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Napleton's North Palm Hyundai

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits the local Hyundai dealer known for their bad business practices, to see how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2025 Hyundai Sonata Limited Hybrid on their car lot. 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, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt the dog you have seen today or any of their other dogs, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “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”

Hello, 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 that Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also, this is my son, Stu Stewart. our link to cyberspace through Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and our encrypted anonymous feedback service. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report.

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting car dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Here we are. That radio show you heard about that tells you how to buy or lease a car or maintain a car without being ripped off by a car dealer. Boy, I sure wish this word would spread all over. I feel like we're preaching to the choir.

We've got a lot of loyal listeners, regular callers, viewers, and you contribute to the show, you regulars. Ironically, we're trying to reach the people that don't listen to the show. So I don't know how we do that. I guess by word of mouth, spread the word. and I know you do that. We actually have people that,

if you listen to this show for two or three years, I mean, and you listen and you took notes, you're on more than a match for the average car dealer. And you all know the folks that get taken advantage of. The young folks, you never bought a car before. Can you imagine you listeners now, think about that first car. You probably had your parents' help or a friend's help or uncle or something, and you got through it, or maybe you didn't, I don't know, but it was tougher than it is today because you'd never bought something like that before. And car dealers had been doing this for, you know, 100 years.

That sounds almost hard to believe, but Henry Ford. I mean, you know, started the dealership network with the Model T. That's the way it's been done. Hagling, horse trading is what they called it back in the day. And that's why we do it today. Can you imagine going to the Target or Publix or Walmart and haggling over a loaf of bread or a bicycle or anything else that you buy?

I know there's haggling in real estate and other areas, and haggling's not all bad. They call it the sophisticated word as negotiating. So if you want to negotiate, some people are really good at it, some people aren't. Me, ironically, because I am a card dealer, you think I'd be the world's best negotiator, I'm not. I like to see a fair price, and I don't like to argue about the price. And I think most people are that way. So it's not that way with cars.

We'll give you some shortcuts if you haven't listened to the show before. And we also, again, I should probably change the introduction because we've got a guy sitting in here next to me. His name is Rick Kearney. He's a certified diagnostic master technician. Don't worry if you don't know what that means to simplify it. He knows everything there is to know about an automobile, mechanically, electronically, computer-wise.

And what he doesn't know, he can find out at about 30 seconds. You might have to cheat a little bit on chat, G. or Google, but we know where to go to get your technical answers. Most of them are right in Rick's brain. When you've been doing it for as long as he had 25 years, quarter century, he was playing with the combustion engine car and the stick shift car and the cars that were playing with today as I play and working his fixing is really a software on wheels.

It's a computer on wheels. So he has to relearn his trade every year, and he goes to school more often than that, online now, used to fly up to Jacksonville or drive up to Jacksonville. Now he's doing a lot of stuff online. You know, when I think about the day, and I'm getting along in years a little bit,

and I spend more time with doctors as I want to. But every time I go to a doctor, I get nervous if he looks like he's too old. So I'm being prejudiced against old people like me. And the reason I get a little bit nervous is, I wonder when did he graduate from med school? And you know, if he graduated from med school in 1965, or 67 or 68, think a half century ago,

more than a half century ago, and he hasn't stayed up with medicine and science, It's just like a technician today on the car. If you haven't stayed up with the technology, you might as well forget about it. You know, you open the hood of today's car, assuming it's got a hood, and you look down at what is kind of running the thing,

and then you look at the same thing for a 1937 Pontiac. I have one on the showroom floor of my toilet dealership at North Palm Beach. And, I mean, it's almost laughable, the difference. in technology there it was all mechanics back then and now it's all software automobile companies are software companies and they're they're merging they're going out of business if the industry is in a state of flux but car dealers are just like they always were and that's the reason we're here they're changing but very very very slowly so I've got a question about the how your car runs whether

it's a brand new one or whether it's one you bought 20 years ago if you hear a little you know strange noise they're always scary those strange noises or maybe the red light comes on and says check engine or maybe get a little bit of pull a little bit of rattle a little maybe or it's a smell i mean there's all sorts of symptoms well cars are a lot like people i mean there's you got to check a lot of variables to see what is not quite right you get rick kearney a call at 877 960-9960 or you can call Nancy Stewart my wife and co-host or me and Stu Stewart our son will be here in a while he's he's going to do I hope at top of the hour current new automobile auto news report we're not sure about that but we think so

and you'll be in the studio shortly so if your questions about buying or leasing a car You've got Nancy, you've got Stu, you got me, and if your question is about maintaining or repairing your car, then it's with Rick Kearney. And that number, you won't have a question right now, and write this down, please. Grab a pencil or pen, pad paper, and write this down, please. 877-960-9960. 6.877-960-960. Now Nancy watches her laptop carefully and Jeremy in the control room or Mike or whoever is in the control room today will flash the number and name of the caller and we will drop what we're doing. I mean, if we're yakking back and forth, we will do our best to stop and go right to the callers. are the heart of the show.

They have personalities. We have funny callers. We have serious callers. We have interesting callers. We have every description. They're all interesting. And it's hard for you to understand this. Hard for me to understand this.

But we learn something new from our callers every week. Well, things are changing so fast in the automobile industry. It's impossible for this team here. Stu, Nancy, Rick, and me to keep up with what's going on. So we hear new stuff all the time, especially from our YouTube folks, which raises the subject of streaming, YouTube.com forward slash earl on cars. YouTube.com forward slash earl on cars.

And, of course, Facebook.com forward slash earl on cars. and if you just want to do the Earl on Cars, we have a blog www.w.w.orgoncars.com. Earleoncars.com The blog that we do and the website that we have really pretty much answers all the questions that you might have. Now, if that isn't enough, we also have a book. I'm holding it up if you're streaming, Confessions of a recovering car dealer,

and it's available on Amazon for about 20 bucks and 100% of the proceeds that Amazon gives us when you buy one of our books 100% goes to big dog ranch rescue and that's a worthy cause for the largest no-kill shelter in the United States save the lives of thousands of dogs a woman by the name of Laurie Simmons found of that She's an amazing person and has devoted her life to dogs and to taking care of them and finding a loving homes for them. So you buy a book for $20, Lori gets the money, and then the dogs get the money, and you've got a happy doggie. So, and you learn more about buying or leasing or maintaining or repairing a car. So, confessions of a recovering car dealer, and we're working, we're working right now, and we've been working for too long.

on the redemption of the recovering car dealer. And there's just a lot to do today. I apologize for promising that book years ago. And I'm almost there. Nancy and I are working on it right now. So redemption of the recovering car dealer. Now, I'm going to turn the microphone over to Nancy Stewart, my co-host.

She founded this show with me 20 years ago. She's a female advocate, extremely strong female advocate. And she has built our audience here at True Oldies Channel to parity with women. 50%? 50%, 50%. 50% women, 50% men. And boy, we've got some short ladies out there that call the show.

And if you don't already know it, the experience a woman has when they buy a car is different than the experience a man has when they buy a car. The retail and the manufacturing industry pretty well dominated by men, And so they didn't set it up the way a woman would have set it up. Mary Barra, who's the president of General Motors,

one of the best presidents they've ever had, is done a lot to remedy that problem, but not just one manufacturer. And we need to see 50-50 like we see in the person in car. So remember, Nancy will put your call through immediately, and she will see the call first. So if you want to call the show at 877, 960-960, you'll be on the air very quickly.

Nancy, I'm going to turn the mic over to you and tell us what's going on. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Earl mentioned his book just a short time ago and Big Dog Ranch. By now, everyone has probably seen Ron DeSantis, Governor Ron DeSantis and Larry Simmons on TV talking about Troopers' Law. Dexter's Law and what a great what a great moment this is there are so many unfortunately people out there who just don't know how to treat animals I hate to even call them that they they just don't know how to treat dogs and this

law is certainly going to change all of that so I can't say enough about Laurie Simmons. What a great person she is and what she has done for all of these dogs, saving them all around the world. So my hat is off to Governor DeSantis, Laurie Simmons, and Trooper's Law and Dexter's Law. I'm so happy. I'm speechless. The other thing that we're going to go over is the.

We're going to go over the mystery shopping report from the famous Napleton of North Palm Beach, Hyundai. And you want to stay tuned for that. Also, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call toll free at 877-960. And you can win yourself $50 this morning for the first two new lady callers. And I think that we'll have Linda call us from last week. She talked to Earl about some interesting pictures that she has, and we're going to share those with the audience this morning.

And some other good news, yep, we have some good news. As far as the Gallup annual honesty and ethics poll, auto mechanics and car salespeople receive differing public perceptions and this is how it goes auto mechanics in the 2024 survey 33% of americans rated the honesty and ethical standards of auto mechanics as high to very high and i want to tell you if you have a mechanic and he treats you right and you formed a relationship with them hang on to them because they are rare and we are you know we're so happy that we have Rick here and he shares his transparency his honesty everything he's going to tell you

exactly like it is and he's going to answer every one of your questions in all these years in all these years that we've been doing the radio show I probably I have a hand of questions, not even a handful, that he couldn't answer. So he's on his game, and he's here, and he's ready for you. And like I said, hang on to that mechanic if you do have one and you build a relationship with them. Again, our number here is 877-960-9960. You can also text us at 772-497-6530.

Please, don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Ladies, please, this morning, $50 for the first two new lady callers. $50. I know you can use it and you can say hello. Share your experience. Whether you leased, whether you bought a used car, new car, maybe you went through service. Share with us this morning, your story. let your voice be heard

877-960-99-60 Texas at 772 4976530 Again, your anonymousfeedback.com Now back to the recovering car dealer I forgot to mention or I did mention

and I found out that Stu will not be here today he'll be picking up our grand do at the airport, our 20-year-old granddaughter at the airport. So the top of the news will be delayed again, and hopefully we'll have it next week. We might have maybe even some more interesting news next week. The TIRF thing hasn't really come out,

but automotive news, I subscribe to it online, and I can get up to the date breaking news up until 8 a.m. Saturday morning. So we try to keep you on top of things. They're changing so fast in the automobile industry. And every time there's a change, you know, you pick up the newspaper, you go online, you look at the television, and there's a 75% tariff, and then the next day you turn down it's a 25% tariff, and then there's no tariffs. And then, I mean, meanwhile, you're thinking about buying a car. So we apologize for the top of the news. We're trying to get that current information to you

because you could be on your way to pick up your new Honda. And unfortunately, Nancy. And to what you just said, we were talking this morning about the, or I asked you, about the $748, if you can believe it, $748 a month. for a new vehicle. And that's without tariffs. Now, what's the average monthly mortgage payment? It's not much higher than that, is it? I mean, that's a lot of money, $740. I think it's a little, I think it's, well, much higher.

Yeah, depending on that. I'll confirm that. Yeah. So we suggest that you can hurry a lot of things in life. You can react, Sometimes it's fun to act on emotion. And if you try to figure everything out before you do it, you're a boring person. But exclude automobile purchase from that way. I mean, it's the second most important purchase you make. And we ask you to give us a call, and we can help you measurably or read the book, Confessions of a recovering car dealer available on Amazon, and our blog, earl on cars.com.

See, we archive all of our mystery shopping reports. So we might have an automobile dealer that you're contemplating buying your next car from, mystery shopped. So, you know, forewarned is forearmed, and Nancy's waving that major. I bet we have a caller. To you, no. To your question about mortgage.

Yep. Mortgage rates are approximately at $1,500 to, $2,200. So if you have two cars... So everything is up. If you have two cars, you probably are equal to your mortgage money. It's a lot of money. A lot of money. You're paying a lot of interest, and interest rates are high. Rick, are you...

Donovan says average mortgage is around $2,200, Earl. Wow. I guess it varies from area to area. Donovan must have been on chat with me. I guarantee he's right in there. Yeah. Yeah. There's a huge variable around the country, and I would hate to think in Palm Beach County, it's probably even higher than that. And the national median home price is around $400,000. Median, yeah.

A little bit of a change, isn't it? Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. the other thing that has got people kind of worried is the whole electric vehicle thing going on and we were surprised Nancy and I am preparing for the show to see in the automotive news that Toyota and as I said earlier I mentioned most of you know we have a Toyota dealership in North Palm Beach and Toyota chose to go the hybrid route in fact they were the originators of the hybrid with the Prius,

and they built their hybrid stable, pardon the expression, to considerable. And you could get almost any Toyota with a hybrid engine. But they kind of lied behind on electric vehicles, and suddenly, whoa, here comes Tesla, here comes Elon Musk, and the Tesla EV race is on. Toyota just announced seven new EVs, and I don't think Rick can do that either. It was just that was breaking news. We would have probably done that at noon if Stu was here, but we'll do it right now. So you Toyota lovers out there, hope is on the horizon.

Frankly, as a Toyota dealer, we're all very disappointed that Toyota seemed to be out of the game in EVs. They only had one total electric vehicle. But we couldn't be too disappointed because, you know, Toyota is the biggest, most powerful, automobile manufacturer in the world. And they sell so many hybrids it kind of more than makes up for EVs because EVs are still a very small

percentage of the market, somewhere around 10%, I would guess. And it used to be 1%. So I mean, it's coming up fast. So that's good news. And EBs, whether you like it or not, it's almost become a political thing now.

If someone says they hate electric vehicles, you can almost guess who they vote for and if they say they everything is a half the United States is on one side of issues and half the United States is on the other side I guess that's what a democracy is all about and as long as you just remember to don't take things too seriously and get mad at somebody because they they bought an electric vehicle and then I experienced a little bit because we both drive electric vehicles as our regular listeners know and and

Occasionally, we get obscene gestures and the horns blown. But we get, actually, to be fair, we get more compliments. And when we pull up in front of a restaurant or public or wherever we go, people see the car. They usually say something favorable about it. And I had to, and Nancy and I both were mumbling to ourselves at the Indianapolis 500. or the car she drives, the Tesla Plaid, was faster than the Corvette Pace car.

And, you know, to think that Nancy is driving a car to public to buy a lower bread, that the car in the Indianapolis 500 can't beat in a race. How do you think Tom Brady felt about that? You're right, yeah. Rick? Hey, interesting note from Donovan here. He says he was just in. Norway and Sweden for 10 days. Oh, cool. He said it's pure

EVs everywhere, especially in Norway. 97% of car sales last month were EVs. No one's buying anything else. And he said, hybrids just don't sell there. In Norway, it's crazy. They're removing gas stations

and replacing them with EV charging stations. Half the cars you see on the roads are EVs. Now, that's amazing. And when you consider a lot of the criticism, but originally, you don't hear that so much anymore about, oh, cold weather, cold weather, you don't want to have an EV in cold weather, because of battery, Norway's pretty damn cold, isn't it?

Norway and Sweden, yeah, they're almost Arctic Circle countries. I mean, let's be honest, yeah, wintertime, it gets very cold. Nancy? And in doubt, speaking of electric vehicles, do you know that the rise of electric vehicles has captured the interest of women big time? and it's all over the news. That's interesting. I knew it was a political thing, but I didn't realize it was a male-female thing.

Women are more inclined. There's especially focused on sustainability and echo-friendliness, naturally. We have Linda on the line, and Linda called us last week, and she spoke to you about, well, several vehicles, and she was kind enough to send us some pictures. And I'm going to have Donovan, or Donovan. I got you on my mind, Donovan. Jonathan is going to bring those up.

So good morning, Linda. Welcome. Good morning. I realize I have a number of things, tie-ins with you, good people. My sister-in-law is known as the Dog Rescue Lady in Savannah, Georgia, and she has a dog boarding business. People plan their vacations around her availability. That's really cool. Yeah, and she, people call her before they call their veterinarian. No kidding. Yeah, she's all dogs. Well, you know, I hate to say this, but I tend to judge

character on whether or not people love dogs, and the people don't love dogs, I kind of, I'm a little skeptical. How can you not love a dog? I am too. And she's a world authority on Newfoundland, Newfee's, but she loves all dogs, and she has a number of

rescue dogs, and she will find proper homes for them. And if it takes her a year, she will, so anyway, and last week, I had gardeners outside,

making a lot of noise, but Nancy said something about a good Jeff Bezos article in the Washington Post. Correct. Doesn't he own the Washington Post? My son-in-law works for Jeff Bezos. In fact, he had breakfast with him in a diner in Melbourne a few months ago when he was in town for a launch. And what was Nancy asking if people knew? Well, we, first of all, Linda, I'm landing. you mentioned that because we need to apologize for the date of that article in the Washington Post.

I mistakenly thought it was going to run last Sunday. It's running this coming Sunday, so that would be tomorrow. And I actually didn't make much difference because we tried to buy a copy of the Washington Post, at least in Palm Beach County, you just can't find one. But yeah, that is going to go full page. article and it will be a letter from me personally to Jeff Bezos and if you're you say it was your son-in-law my son-in-law if he can put in a good word for us ask you ask Jeff to read that article in the Washington Post and what we're asking Jeff

Bezos is to consider us as the first non-Hundee dealers to sell on Amazon Amazon right now you can buy a new Hyundai and the Hyundai is sold at a good, fair price, totally transparent through Amazon, guaranteed by Amazon, and with all the security and feelings of, I'm not going to get taken advantage of with Amazon. And they're opening that up to other car dealers, and we'd like to be on the list, Jeff Bezos's list, if you consider Earl Stewart as a dealer, we're asking, we asked him in the Washington Post because he owns the paper and I figured he might be reading the paper on Sunday so tomorrow Sunday will be that letter and if your grandson could remind Jeff to take a look at it

we'd be eternally grateful. I will do that tomorrow. Yeah, we'd be eternally grateful and if anybody out there knows where we can get a Washington Post because last weekend we did a deep search very very deep search and we came up empty so linda if you or anyone is listening right now knows where we can get a Washington post please give us a call send us a text as we'd like to

get our hands on more than one but back to Linda and the reason we connected last week was Linda was a first time female caller number one and also She shared with us owning Duesenberg and really got Earl's interest and mine. And she was kind enough to send a lot of pictures. And Earl just loves the Duesenberg. Between 1928 and 1937, that was the only car that a wealthy, affluent. You weren't anybody unless you were driving a Duesenberg during that era. And it was just made Cadillac and Mercedes and BMW looked like a pickup truck.

It was just, it was the car of cars back in that time. And Linda, you, I got to say something before you say anything. My goodness, you knew a lot of people or you know a lot of people. If my memory serves me right, there were pictures of you sent me of you and Trump. You and Marlowe Maples, Alan Alden, just to mention. and a few. And I'm wondering, did you live in Florida or Hollywood? Were you in Hollywood?

Los Angeles for 10 years. Oh, you were in Los Angeles. Okay. Yes. Yes. That explains it. You were running with the movers and shakers. Yes.

Yes. It was a wonderful decade. And I'm certainly enjoying, I prefer the humidity here in Florida to that dry air and the Santa Ana winds in California. I agree. Now, your dealership is in Jupiter? Yeah, we're in North Palm Beach, which is just adjacent to Jupiter. We're on US One in North Palm Beach.

I see. My late husband and I used to drive up to Jupiter at least once a week. Yeah, we live there now. And we went on an extraordinary voyage with the owner of the Maltz Jupiter Theater. Oh, yeah. 93, we sailed on the QE2 to London and returned on the Concord. Wow. How delightful was that?

You can't get any more high class on that. No, no, wonderful memories and pictures. I'll try to locate. And we stayed at the, it was called the Jupiter Hilton at that time. Every year for the Turtle Lane egg watching every August. It used to be the Burnt Reynolds Theater. I think. Yes, we went there

and the Maltz Jupiter Theater had some wonderful musical shows that we never missed. Wonderful. And so, yeah, it was nothing to drive up to Jupiter in other days. We're not too far

from the Jupiter Hilton or the Per Rennels Theater. But that you know, viewing the turtles, what an experience that is and was for Are we going to see the pictures?

A lot of great memories. Yeah, Jonathan is going to, he's going to pull those up. That Dusenberg, you've got to see this picture. We first viewed our turtle. Yeah, you folks dreaming. Nesting season was out in Juneau, Juneau Beach, where Earl and I lived for about 21 years. And it is just the last, I'd say, 18 years that we've been living in Jupiter. We have a wonderful sanctuary for.

different they help bring back to good health many different water it's right near the FPL Florida Power and Light corporate offices yes they all of the who come in who are injured from motor accidents and yeah are you speaking of the Marine Life Center in Juneau. Yeah, Earl and I spend quite a lot of time there in our younger days. But Jonathan's going to, as I said, pull up those pictures, and we're going to take a look at them. How about the Villanova president?

And I also met the previous president, Reverend Dobbins, who never looked at me, never spoke to me. He was there when Pope Leo attended Villanova. Did you get that picture? Is that right? Yeah, with Reverend Donahoe, who is the current. I didn't recognize him on the news. He's about three times the way he is in the picture with me.

But my nickname is the reader, so I know I will enjoy the Consumer Reports. Oh, thank you. I will be receiving. It certainly is an asset, that's for sure, to everyone, including us. Jonathan, I can't tell. Is the Dysenberg up? Okay, very good. Okay, Linda, thank you for your time.

Thank you. And spread the word here. You know a lot of people. Spread the word that ladies are very important in this industry. and there's a lot of dealers that just don't realize that, and it's a financial disaster for them. So I bid you a good day, and I hope our paths cross again. I hope so.

Thank you. Bye, bye, bye now. Have a great weekend. Our number here is 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 77-492-497-6-5-30, and don't forget, your anonymous feedback.com and as I said earlier I'd love to hear from anyone about the Washington Post

because Earl and I were really you know counting on you know getting our hands on the Washington Post and you know giving it out to some of our friends this is an exciting time

Would you like to read the letter? Just read it on the air An open letter to Jeff Bezos. Dear Jeff, I applaud Amazon's bold entry into the retail auto market. Selling new cars online through Amazon is not just a disruptive idea. It is necessary evolution that puts the customer's needs, namely transparency and convenience first. We are honored to be part of your upcoming, used and certified pre-owned vehicle program this summer.

But as the founder and CEO of Earl Stewart Toyota, I respectfully ask that you consider us to be the first new car dealer other than Hyundai to sell new vehicles on Amazon Autos. Why, Earl Stewart, Toyota? We've walked the talk for decades. My dealership has published our lowest, out-the-door prices online for nearly 20 years. No games, haggling, junk fees, addendum labels, or dealer-installed accessories. We answer to our customers literally. My personal cell phone,

the red phone, is published everywhere and rings directly to my desk. Anyone can reach me at any time. We don't upsell or pressure. We empower customers. Our salary non-commissioned sales team focuses on one thing, doing what's right. We're a model for national dealer reform. Our innovative and honest culture has been featured on national news outlets for decades, including CNN, Fox, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Automotive News, and I'm sure there's some here that you forgot to mention. Our top-notch customer service has led us to six consecutive Palm Beach Community Choice Awards for the best new and used auto dealer.

If Amazon wants to test and learned from its Hyundai Roald, lot, I believe you'll benefit from partnering with a dealership that has championed a tested improvement consumer-first model for decades. Let's build a future in which building a car online is as seamless and trustworthy as buying any product has always been on Amazon. respectfully, Earl Stewart, owner, Earl Stewart, Toyota. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I hope Jeff reads that. I hope he hears it, and it's really cool that Linda's...

Isn't it amazing? Grandson. Yeah. Is friends with Jeff? I had lunch with him. I think that we're going to have some Washington Post newspapers at our front door. Boy, that'd be cool. I think Linda's listening right.

right now. I'd be cool. And I think she's going to take care of it for us. Right, Linda? Our number here is 877-9-60-9-960. You can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We're going to go to the phones out where John has been holding from West Palm Beach.

Good morning, John. Hey, good morning. I just wanted to comment on the stat that you threw out about the women leaning more towards EV cars instead of ice. And I believe the attraction to the EV is women don't like going to the gas station and pumping their own gas, especially if they're getting ready, if they're going to work in that. How much easier is it to just plug in at home or plug in instead of pumping. gas, you know, I'm possibly getting gas on you, you know, things like that. I think that may be

the reason for moving towards TV. I think that's a very intelligent and I wouldn't, I hadn't even thought about that. You know, the funny thing is, I'm definitely not a woman, but

I've always hated to have to go through the game of pumping gas and especially when there's line and especially when the pumps aren't working right or one of my pet peeves is we're in Florida and we get the sun bright we got bright sunshine down here all the time and I'm six when I was younger I was six foot five so I take the pump and I got the sun glaring off the counter and the gallons I couldn't tell whether it says diesel or gas or premium or regular

I had to bend down and squint. And then meanwhile, somehow, I managed to get gas all over my shirt. And in the meantime and in between time, John, I would just simply step in and say, let me take over here. Yeah, Nancy, you like to pump gas. And I love pumping gas. I love, you know, express checkout at Publix, all the things that Earl found. well shall we say rather tedious but it was it was quite I sometimes felt that we were on candid camera when we stopped at the gas station it sounds weird just saying gas station

right now I have to be careful because people call me pig pen from the penis article because I've got when I eat I spell food when I pump gas I spill gas when I brush my teeth I get toothpaste on my tie. I mean, I'm just pig pen, is what I am. Hey, Jonathan is talking about germophobic, germs and microorganisms and everything on these pumps and the handles and everything. Well, that's where you have to be, you know, seasoned. You have to be a seasoned gas pumper. You've got to have your sanitary wipes.

You've got to be focused. You've got to have your sunglasses on. John said it's true, women typically are more clean and more careful about that sort of thing than men. Rick? Note from Donovan here. He says, one reason I read is that women are more sensitive to smells. Yeah. And with EVs, you remove a lot of that.

Exactly, yeah. And Nancy's got a nose like a beagle. And, you know, she can walk in to any area, and she can pick up. it's kind of like high frequency noise some people can hear she has a high frequency nose and she can pick up any smell Yeah it can be a drawback at times

But extremely I was just born It's a terrible drawback With the sensitivity And that's who I am Yeah Okay John Wonderful Thank you very much

Great call Oh you've got called I love hearing from you John give us a call again. Our number is 877-960-960. We are going to Rick, do we have any texts or anything for you

to report? We do. Okay. We've got Anne-Marie's initial text of the morning. We'll stick with that little tradition. She says, good morning. I often see advertisements for certified used cars. That has me wondering about the meaning of certified yeah number one is certified just a bit of puffery a type of weasel word that really doesn't mean much number two does certified used car mean yes this is definitely a used slash pre-owned car number three potential

customers could feel that a certified used car brings some sort of guarantee or warranty with it does it and number four what do dealers really mean when they use a term certified used car thanks great great question you are a very insightful woman and marie and i i know you know that because uh everyone says the same thing yeah certified is one of the uh famous words that advertisers use uh there's certain words that like as much as up to uh weasel words i call them and the words that have ambiguous meaning but the public for some reason is children to take the positive meaning. Certified sounds strong like American or inspected.

I mean, we have words that give us a feeling of confidence. Now, the reason the manufacturers, almost all of them, all of them maybe, have a certified used guard program, is because they sell the warranty, the warranty that goes with the program to the dealer. So it's all about the money and life, unfortunately, is too much all about the money. So whether it's General Motors or whether it's Toyota

or it's Honda or Chrysler, whatever manufacturer, they have a warranty that they make a huge amount of money on. Insurance, the reason Warren Buffett, God bless him, and I'm sorry to see him retire, he made his fortune. I mean, he made his fortune in a lot of ways because he's got all the money. Well, the wealthiest man.

They say that Busk and Bezos are the richest man in the world. Warren Buffett is truly the richest man in the world because he gives away so much money. In fact, Bill Gates is also one of those. But Bill Gates and Warren Buffett give the money away just. about as fast as they make it so I'd much rather be known as the sixth richest man who gives away half his money than the richest man that doesn't give away money but I'm just

saying that that certified is insurance is what it is it's an insurance company that made Warren Buffett all his money and it doesn't mean diddly and it depends the certified car is what the manufacturer says it should be how it should be inspected and repaired and maintained but it's only as good as the dealer that does what you tell him to do so my advice to all you people out there when you see certified use car go to the dealer find the used car you want to buy asked to see the certification see what is certified on there say you want to see inspection sheet and if they can't show the inspection sheet they probably haven't done

the certification because the technician has to sign it and check each box they've done then I'd still take the car to my own mechanic to see if the inspections have been done the way they were supposed to be then you've got yourself a certified car that was properly inspected now here's an inside Earl's inside trick and I'm Nancy's waving at me so I got a shot I was just I was just saying that, you know, certified, it can be a slippery slope. And just like everything else, you better do your homework because these cars are priced higher than a used car that isn't certified.

And you don't even know if it's certified. So do your homework. Here's a way to beat the game. Here's a way to beat the dealer and the manufacturer at their own certified game. Go in, book at the car, get the certification papers, get the signature of the technician, verify that the work was done, that he says was done, and then say, okay, I want you to sell me another car

where the work hasn't been done, but I want you to do the work on the car and I don't want the warranty. In other words, you say I don't want the warranty, but I just want the inspection, because you're buying an insurance policy that's not worth all that money. They overcharge you for the certification.

So you can have the benefit of a car that was carefully checked and don't buy the warranty and come out $1,000 ahead of the game. So that's Earl's tip and trick and buying a certified used car. Anne-Marie, thanks very much for a great question. Great question, Annery. Thank you, as usual. Have a great weekend. Rick?

That's got us caught up on our text messages. Let's see, according to Donovan, he says one quick note here. The new 26 Toyota CHR-E-V is actually very interesting if they get it priced right. That's one of the new ones that we do have coming out that I know of. And for those that aren't aware, the CHR is kind of a small SUV, a little smaller than the RAV4, and Toyota has made an electric version of it should be an interesting car and supposedly is going to be priced right around 30 to 35,000

which makes it a lot more reasonable than a lot of the cars on the road. As I said at the beginning of the show, Toyota finally saw the light on the electric vehicle and they now have seven more electric vehicles planned and the one you just described, Rick, is, you know, the first. People are still buying mainly hybrid, so Toyota is ahead of the game, and I shouldn't have underestimated.

I've underestimated them a couple of times, and they're always a lot smarter than I am. Here's an interesting twist on Toyota, something no other manufacturer does. Now, as you know, Toyota sells cars all over the world, and they are the largest manufacturer and the most profitable manufacturer. They now have the CEO of each country, the chief executive officer for selling Toyotas in Afghanistan, in France, in Norway, in the United States, all these CEOs, they get together twice a week, and they have a meeting. and there's no reports and there's no manuscript. It is a, I guess, a giant conference call.

And picture this, a worldwide BS call where you could just talk back and forth. Hey, how are things going in Norway? You know, how's this model doing there? Oh, you have this model. We have this in the United States. How about Venezuela? Can you imagine, I mean, it's so simple

that even you and I can feel. the change. That means that the head guy for Toyota in every country in the world has got a pretty good idea of the good ideas, the bad ideas, the problems, of the challenges of the whole globe. And anyone that says we're not a global economy now isn't on top of things. And earlier you mentioned the top news things. I got to bring this one out because this This one just cracked me up a bit. Just north of us a little bit is a town called Stewart, Florida. And there's a little restaurant there that it's a diner type place.

Been there for many, many years called Harry and the Natives. Yeah. We're very familiar with it. Somebody broke into Harry and the Natives, apparently last night, to plug in and charge their Tesla. apparently I'm guessing Teslas have the ability still to plug into a

110 outlet but apparently somebody broke into a little hole in the wall diner restaurant in Stewart, Florida to plug in and charge

their Tesla. Do you think there was alcohol involved? I think there was something involved that probably shouldn't have been involved but yeah folks this world we live in is just so

just slightly off the rocker. I mean, it's just, I love stories like this, and especially when they're automobile related. But give us a call. Tell me, tell us, what are some of the craziest stories you have seen that have to do with cars? Just some of the weirdest little things.

I mean, imagine now we've got self-driving cars and self-driving Tesla's and other models coming with that full ability. I got a question for you, Rick. This is in the current automotive news, and the title is how extended range EV hybrids work. And apparently they're starting to pick up. So the nomenclature is confusing to me, and I'm a car dealer, and a hybrid and EV, you know, a hybrid is an EV, but an EV is, you know, and they have the nicknames. What is, can you, here it is in case I caught you off guard. An extended range hybrid, as I understand it, has what people like

is they have the regular transmission instead of the non-transmation on a total EV. So it gives you the capacity for the battery range on top of the combustion engine range and the gasoline. To me, it's not too exciting. It's kind of like a, what are we going to do until we get EV that has everything and we want it to have kind of a transition. But have you seen any of those or worked on them? Actually, technically, yes, because Toyota hybrids, traditionally, the original Prius design, the gasoline engine never actually had a physical connection to the wheels.

The gasoline engine was only a generator to create electricity that would drive the car. And so what they're describing here is basically it's an EV that has its own, has a gasoline engine still in it, but it's only there just to help charge the system when it's needed. Why do they use the normal transmission? Well, you have to understand that electric vehicles, for the most part, don't have a transmission. That's what I ask. Yeah, you've got electric motors. But if you want to have that gasoline added in,

some cars say you want to have multiple gears I mean one of the things that Toyota did that I still I find myself asking why when they built a car

with a CVT a continuously variable transmission in other words you step on the accelerator the car takes off and you don't get any of that shifting motion that jerking when it shifts gears well apparently they went through study groups

and people didn't like the idea that the car didn't have a shift point. So Toyota actually programmed the car to simulate shifting gears. Let me give this number out here because I guess we don't have any call. We have a call. We're going to go straight to the phones

and we're going to talk to Sidney. Sidney's calling us from Ocala. Good morning, Sydney. Morning. Welcome. I have a question for a week. All right. What is your question?

I've been calling about this car for a couple of times before, for the Turrit, the High Ender in 2013. Why now I have a problem with that car? It doesn't, when you press your foot on the gas, it doesn't accelerate. And when you have a little hill, he doesn't want to go to the hill. It's just like when you press your foot, it's just like the car slow down. And since my wife used it to take my daughter to school, she has to put on the emergency light so the car don't drop behind it. That's how slow the car. And there's no light, no engine light on, nothing on. But when you step on the accelerator pedal, do you hear the engine speed up

or does the car just not go anywhere? The engine they can notice then you use the and the engine that kind of sounds to me like your transmission is slipping. I would get that in and get checked out by an auto mechanic, a good qualified mechanic, because if you step on the gas and the engine accelerates, but the car doesn't really go anywhere, that sounds like your transmission is slipping. And that's something that can break down very soon and just completely stop. Yeah, because my worst care of driving it. That's why I don't drive it. I let me drive it because my daughter doesn't go to school too far. Yeah, but that's the sort of thing that once it starts slipping like that,

that's going to get worse very quickly, and it's going to break and leave you stranded. Sidney, if there is a mechanic that you know and trust or a dealer or a friend recommend someone that they know and trust, you or your wife take the car in and road test it with the technician, not the person that might be in the service drive to sell you service but the technician that would be working on the car and then you or your wife drive the car and experience that lack of power that you get when you accelerate he

can feel it and that will be one of the best ways it can be diagnosed if you don't if you describe it verbally and just give them the car without a test drive you're liable to get a misdiagnosis and there'll be a a diagnostic charge that you wouldn't want to have to pay, but that's, I would feel the same way if my child would be driven in school in a car that wasn't accelerating, and especially when you have to put the brake light on, so the car behind you doesn't hit you in the back, that's not a comfortable feeling with your child in the car. So I'd get that checked out right away with a test drive I'm sorry we're having a hard time hearing you

yeah yeah I have a tutor leadership close to me I'm gonna take it there this week to see what they told me what's home with it okay that's great we and let us know how it worked out. Will you? Call us back next Saturday. I will. Thank you. Yeah. I have another question.

Go ahead. I have a Subaru legacy 2019. It just has 87,800 mileage. I just take it to the service. And the guy told me you need the injection flu cleaning. Is that something I can do in it? I wouldn't even bother. Injecture flush cleaning.

it's it's fluff it's it's it's made up work it's not recommended by any manufacturer and really all it is is they're just trying to basically get you to spend money for nothing that's gonna help your car on modern-day gasoline have plenty of cleaners and detergents in there and if the car is running normally and you don't have any problems with it it's not doing a check engine light or anything and it's running completely normal I wouldn't bother they're going to charge you probably two hundred and fifty dollars or more to do that and it's not going to

do anything to help your car what really will help out a car in cases like that when they start getting up on mileage and you're worried about things like carbon buildup in the engine over time is fill a car up with a good tank of quality gasoline proper octane rating for what your car is meant to have like the 87 octane and just get out on the highway and drive for like 35, 40 minutes and it gives a chance for the oil to get heated up

and the engine to get heated up and it breaks up those carbon deposits and burns them right through the engine and everything's fine. But spending that money is just, you might as well just take the money and light it on fire and throw it in the garbage. Sidney, do this.

Find your owner's manual, which you probably can't find on your car and your wife's car and if you can't find it you can buy one on Amazon you can buy one from the dealer I would recommend Amazon for a lot less cost

and you look at your car and for that your making model and then you look at the mileage that owner's manual will have recommended maintenance and they all owners manual have that a good rule of thumb

is don't have the work done even when it's recommended by a dealer or an independent repair shop, don't have the work done unless it's in the recommended maintenance on your owner's manual for that mileage. And the recommended maintenance is not as extensive as you might believe. You'd be surprised the things like flushes

and made-up services that dealers have come up with that sound official and necessary but are actually worthless. So stick to your owner's manual recommended maintenance. He'll save thousands of dollars. And also, at 1287 mileage a day, that means 80 miles one way and mileage the odd day. So I think that's good enough to clean the system. Oh, yes.

What's one, I put 97 or 91 in it. Is it bad to put that gas, the highest? It won't actually hurt anything to run the higher. octane fuel, but it's really just a waste of money. If your car, when you look on the gas cap, if it says regular unleaded fuel only, then

you can run the 87 octane without any problem, and it'll save you probably 30, 40 cents a gallon on fuel. Okay. Sidney, thank you very much. We're looking forward to your call next week. Yeah, give us a call next week,

and let us know what's going on. I will. Have a great weekend. Our number here is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us at 772-49-7-6-5-30. Don't forget you can get in touch with us through Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We are going to, I'm going to remind the ladies that you can win yourself $50 this morning, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you.

We're going to go to John, who's been holding in Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning. I'm affected at my age or Earl's age by this new dust that's coming from Africa, and it's affecting me. I have a running nose and a dry cough. Now, a question for Rick is, would you recommend, because this is all over the state of Florida,

that we change the cabin filters in our cars more often than what the manufacturers recommend. It's not an expensive item, and would it be a great help if we change it more regularly? For people with allergy issues in the state of Florida, yeah, I would not hesitate to say change it a little more often. And I would even say, especially if you can do it yourself, if you're able to access it yourself and change that filter yourself,

step up for the money and get the activated charcoal filters. They're more expensive, but you'll know that it's a proper, high quality one by the weight of it. They're much, much heavier, but they do a better job of getting the allergens out of the air and protecting your lungs. And I know the Saharan dust that we get every year is kind of a big negative on us, but be aware of one thing. There is one slight silver lining. that also helps cut down on the number of hurricanes we get this early because that Saharan dust and sand affects the weather patterns

and we don't get hurricanes as easily when we got that high Saharan flow. Now the filter you recommend, the better one, is that available on most auto stores? It is, but like I say, look for the one that feels much heavier. And do little research online for reviews in that. But yeah, you want one that's got

the activated charcoal, and it actually works better as well at keeping odors out of the car as well. Okay, Rick, thank you. You know, get some relief. Thank you very much for your information. My pleasure. I hope you feel better, John. Yeah, I hope you get your allergies under

control. Thank you. Have a great weekend. I just checked cabin filters bought on Amazon versus cabin filters bought from car dealerships, and with chatGBT, price range on Amazon is $10 to $30 per filter,

and the price range of car dealerships is $40 to $80 per filter. And so just a reminder, you know, I'm not pushing Amazon, even though we're asking the favor of Jet Bezos, but Amazon is just so on top of cost. And you can get whatever quality filter you want on Amazon, And the one that Rick has recommended is a carbon filters, activated carbon. Is that what they call? Yeah.

Charcoalal, yeah. And so you get a cheap filter, a medium filter, or the high price spread. You're still going to save a huge amount of money instead of buying it from your dealer. And YouTube will have hundreds of videos on every model on how to change that filter. So if you got a little bit of time, they're inside, usually behind the. glove compartment they're not very hard to change and you won't even get your hands dirty really oh I just I just did a my my first car maintenance the other day I have a witness Nancy watched me we bought a big how much it was it a gallon

an ace hardware for coolant for a Chevy for Chevy for a cyber truck and because my light was coming on that I Yeah, coolant. So I opened the Frunk, F-R-U-N-K. That was a challenge because I haven't used the Frunk yet. I got the Frunk open, had a hard time getting the cap off, didn't we? And I had Nancy running back and forth.

She got me one of these openers for people with bad hands, and I finally got the cap off. And I picked up that container, which is very heavy, by the way. Oh, yeah. And I held it with help from Nancy. and I actually put all the cool one in my... I said to you, keep born, keep corn, baby. Can I get an N-I-A-S-E badge for that?

No. Oh, okay. I got an idea. We'll get you a gold star, though. If all else fails, we certainly can supplement our incomes. Exactly, yeah. You and I. You and I can go on the road.

Anybody with a cyber truck that wants the cool one, I can handle it for you for a small fee. Okay, where are we now? I was going to ask Rick a question about these cabin filters. Sure. Are they, is there a filter in all vehicles? I would say almost every new car on the road nowadays has cabin filters. I can't speak for 100% certain, but I would bet most all of them have got cabin filters.

And like I say, they're not difficult to change. most of them require pulling the glove box just accessing behind the glove box and get your pliers out you know get your screw driver out you know be prepared a lot of cars you don't even need a single tool and just like I say look up your model on YouTube and you'll find videos of how to work that glove box loose

access that little panel just pop the door open and change out the paper filter if there's one thing that they're going to try to you in a cardio ship, it's going to be a cabin air filter because it's such an easy cell. I mean, when you start talking microorganisms in dust and dirt, and then you can think about the asthma, oh, I mean, you can, you can sell anybody, you know, you don't want to drive with your children in that car with a dirty air filter. So that's true.

Especially the places. You don't know that the guy selling you the filter, there's a 400% mark on. and the guy's probably making a bigger commission showing you the filter than you'd pay for that filter on Amazon not to mention the fact that in a lot of these like the shall we say the quick loop places they come walking over and show you a filter that's not the filter from your car most likely that's the one they keep on the shelf that looks real nasty they're going to say yeah you want to change this and they stick it right under your face that air's going into your child's lungs right now yeah and And average person's, yeah, give me, give me, give me. What's really important, make sure that you dispose of that old filter because all those things that you're thinking about, the reason to replace the filter are in that old filter. And you want to make sure that you get rid of that properly. Yep. Okay.

We are ladies, give us a call toll free. We still have time, $50 for the first two new lady callers. We're going to go to Trisha, and Trisha is one of our favorite callers. Right, Trisha? Oh, that's very sweet of you. You're my favorite radio podcast, all right? Well, thank you. Anyway, I got a great story for you.

For the more reason, I would like to see you do, like, you know, the repair scam stories. that we talked about. On Tuesday afternoon, luckily I wasn't too far from home, my car started flashing, you know, power failure, system failure, blah, blah, blah, to barely steer my car until I shut up the air conditioning, barely made it home into my driveway. I called Dino. You know, he diagnosed it over the phone, said it's your alternator.

Oh, oh, boy. Okay? Right? So I get, I call up this new kid guy that I've been using for a mobile guy. I don't know if I told you about him. I mean, he's just like started, started in the business, blah, blah, blah. But we were calling around. Dino said he couldn't take care of me.

Even though I've recommended Dino, sometimes guys, he's even too busy to take care of me or take on anybody could. He's a one-man show. Yeah. All right. Couldn't even help me, even though I'd have to tow my car there. So I'd call up this dude guy. Ethan, a mobile kid.

He's actually a kid, but he's very reliable, dependable, and a hard worker. Call around for getting, you know, alternators priced from $212 all the way to $5,600. Most of them are refurbished, Rick. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, most salt naters and water pumps you're going to buy are the first one they're going to recommend for you is a remanufactured or refurbished. There's nothing wrong with those. They reuse only the hard parts, the metal pieces that are basically recycled.

All the moving parts are brand new and there shouldn't be any problems with them. Yes, so that's what I heard. So why pay for a new one when these refurbished ones have a better. warranty and just look so right around the corner advanced auto had one got got it in to deliver two hundred and twelve dollars the kid picked it up after work he comes to my house uh spends three and a half hours putting in that because you got to get a drive belt with it right i'm learning all this stuff um you got to put it in a drive belt to get it in first time doing it takes off the front end very small area to work in gets it in really good

follows the YouTube videos like you just, you know, heard about, that you just talked about. Unfortunately, we didn't know this at the time, but the alternator was bad. So my system kept flashing, system charging, when I took it out Thursday morning. Now, this kid who's still kind of wet behind the years said, oh, no. let it run for about 30 minutes. That's the connection between the battery and the alternator. Well, you know that's not true, Rick, because I found out later, once you put in a new alternator, the system should not say charging.

It should be fine, right, from what I learned and checked around. Well, it's going to depend on the state of charge of the battery. If the battery got run low, it may need a little time to recharge that battery. okay well we fully recharged my old battery okay it didn't it didn't it didn't work because the battery is four years old so recharging that one it really didn't help because the amplage was bad so here my car I'm running around around an hour a half riding with the car system charging system charging obviously it's running on total battery Rick because the alternator was a bad alternator didn't know it at the time all right so here I am stalled again after coming back of

tennis pulling on the side of road have to pick up a tow truck have to call a tow truck I drive it to my all-American auto which is right across from advance auto to see what they could do for me. Keeping me waiting for hours, he says, probably it's a bad alternator, let me check the voltage, keeps me waiting for hours, I mean, literally before he even checks the voltage, gives me a quote of $980. Wow. He says, based on your problem, I think you need a new alternator, not a refurbished one.

Now, let me back up and say, originally he gave me a quote of $5.25. I was just curious to see, he would quote, as opposed to Ethan, my young mobile guy. I would have to pay for the alternator $21, a new battery is $200. I gave him some money for his labor. So I wanted to see the comparison between the shop, which I've done work before, and I've trusted before. So I went with Ethan doing it in my driveway. Now, I got upset at first because I said, this is what happens when you work with amateurs.

It wasn't Ethan's fault. It was a bad alternator. He actually did a really good job from what I heard from other people looking at it, putting in the alternator and the drive belt. And, of course, I had to get a new battery. Okay. So here are my choices. Get a new alternator again from advance auto.

Of course, they're not going to charge me. Or go with a brand new one at All-American at 980. So how would you go? And I gave the kids some more money. So this is the story of a shop that I've done business with for years going from 525. to 980 and by the way it did not include a drive belt because I already had a new drive belt put in by Ethan so I get you know the story I'm going to go with I'm going to get a new alternator right I'm going to get another refurbish one oh E plus the original one that came with

the car picked it up after work came last night only took him an hour as opposed to three and a half hours. He even bought a voltage meter to check the voltage of the new alternator. It was all good. I'm learning that a bad one is only 10.5 volts. A new one should be like 13.5 to 15.5. He checked all that. It checked out. The system started up. No power charging. Anything like that? I'm running perfect today. Well, unfortunately, even a brand new part sometimes is bad, right? out of the box. I mean, that's something that I've run into. Even the best companies, sometimes they get a bad one. But just the difference. It is rare, but the difference on remanufactured, a refurbished part versus a brand new one, really there's no difference on them

because the electronics are supposed to be replaced out and be brand new. That's why even that refurbished one has a guarantee on it so if it doesn't work you know and you have to be careful between used and refurbish you can also buy used right really a role of the dice right and those won't have a guarantee on you know we're talking new alternator we're talking used alternator we're talking refurbished alternator so you have to really be careful these these are refurbished and and the same guy in advance auto who is helping me out a lot Rick he said the same thing these refurbished ones are just as good as new ones and blah blah blah why pay the money they got a better warranty and he's saying the same thing so he got me another one okay um the

next day uh Ethan the young mobile guy put it in and like I said my car's running perfectly today, now with the voltage, correct. My point is, I want to point out how the repair scams, how they take advantage, which I don't like. And this guy I've done business with for years, and this is what I get. Yeah, that's a shame. It's anytime you're selling a product that your average customer

doesn't understand, there is that danger. I mean, let's face it, a smooth. Move talking, really nice technician, can make a lot of money because you trust them. And because you don't understand the product. I mean, when you buy a loaf of bread or you buy a steak, you understand pretty much what a good steak is and what a good loaf of bread is.

But when you got an alternator, we just discussed here, who would have thought? There's three different kinds of alternators. Used, rebuild, new, what's the difference? The average person doesn't know. Yeah, it's essential to weigh up the risk and the benefits, you know, based on your budget, the vehicle, everything. And you mentioned a steak. I'm ready for one.

Hey, Trish, you've worked up an appetite with me right now. So I'm going to bid you farewell and give us a call next week and take us down Memory Lane and how things turned out. Well, hopefully I won't have any horror stories like this. Well, they're good radio. They're expensive for you, but they're good radio for us. Have a great weekend, Trisha. Exactly. I'm glad I can help you out.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we're going to go to one. Have a really good problem for next week. Hey, Rick, you got a steak on the grill here? A steak on the grill. Oh, I did that last week. Get with it.

I'm starting to get goofy. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go to our next caller, and that is going to be Roadrunner, Steve. Me, me. And, Ben, please hold on. You are next in line. I like that true story. That was very interesting. Even I was amazed at that.

Oh, you were. Yes, if you're going to change the alternator on your car, when they sell it to you, have the guy tested right there in the store. Maybe you could save some time and money with that. Good point. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. And where were you, Steve, when Tricia needed you?

What day was it? No, I can't deal with those calls where you can't even get your hand in for a morning. Steve, I think after talking to you all these years, you can deal with anything. No, no. I had three X ways, so I don't know. What I wanted to bring up was my Nissan Frontier, 2016, with 25,000 miles on it. I had an oil change done.

And the guy recommended break fluid change, because it's usually like, you're supposed to do that after 10,000 miles. Is that true? A lot of people recommend break fluid exchanges, flushing the break fluid. How about the manufacturer? Yeah, the manufacturers generally don't recommend that as a necessary maintenance item. And unless there is some reason to change the break fluid that it's been contaminated or if it's really, really super old and dirty, I might consider it. But otherwise, it's pretty much a fluff thing.

I know. It could wear it down, though, right? Break fluid eventually can break down. but we're talking years and granted break fluid is what's known as a hygroscopic fluid it absorbs moisture from the air but that's why the special rubber

cap is on there to help prevent moisture from getting in there and condensation and the whole system except for that little tiny opening at the break reservoir the rest of the system is sealed and that fluid is simply there for a hydraulic purpose back and forth and yeah a lot of companies use that as a fluff upsell

because they can charge you a bunch of money and odds are you're never even going to know if they did it or did it properly because it's so easy just to take a turkey baster from Publix suck the fluid out of the reservoir pour in a half a pint of fresh fluid in there and it looks all bright yellow and pretty and clean and it looks just fine again but uh... and with all that moisture it can lower the boiling point of the fluid

and leading to some potential break failure. Yep. And Earl's pulled it up here on chat GPT, and they say apparently it's recommended every 30,000 or two to three years. They obviously to use dot three break fluid, but unless that fluid really looks bad to me, dark or dirty,

and it's if you're feeling a problem with the, pedal, I might consider it. But otherwise, it's not something that I would recommend in most cases. Does Nissan recommend it? I think that's what I said. In the book, yeah, well, right now I'm in my century, not in my frontier. But when you brought up the turkey base, I had to laugh to myself. On my roadway, I wanted to take some antifreeze out of my

radiator, right, without opening up the pet cut. I went to Dowertree, and I went to that a tree, and I got a turkey baster, and I started taking something out. Oh, yeah. For all reason. Yep. That's why they come in handy those things. You'd be surprised.

Oh, hey. I once used a turkey baster to irrigate my sinuses. Earl's very experienced with turkey basters. Let me announce to the audience that if we had more time here, and guess what, let me get you warmed up for next week's show. We will discuss Earl's turkey baster. She had to revive me on the kitchen floor.

With a box of Morton salt. Okay, I just want to thank Tish for that wonderful conversation she had there. It probably opened up a lot of people's eyes about that. Yeah. Okay, everybody have a safe

weekend. Bebe. Thanks, Steve. Nice talking to you. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Ben and continue the fun here. Ben from West Pole Beach. Good morning, Ben. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. I have a question for Rick. Okay, he's ready. Okay. I have a 2005 Nissan Centra. And when I bought the car, it had like a presswood type. Presswood on the, it's covering the spare. And it had two bats in there, one of them. had a like a rubber type back in yeah and and uh i had to dump the mat with the rubber type back in you know because in the summertime it would emit like a greasy substance in the

trunk so i dumped that and the presswood type wood that was in there it got wet because i had a case of water in there so you got wet and it got mushy and stinky so i had to dump it now i realized that the trunk is developing like condensation you know in the trunk it's doesn't does because the presswood is no longer in there and the mat with the rubber type back in, if you think that's the reason why the condensation is building up in the trunk? More likely, you've got a really tiny leak. One of the rubber seals or something

is starting to let some fluid into the trunk and you've got a little bit of air, the moisture builds up in there. Once you get water in there, Florida heat hits it and it turns into a little steam chamber. my recommendation unless you want to spend the money to replace the like the rubber gaskets and start looking to see if you've got a leak somewhere I would simply go over to Home Depot or Publix or something and get some damp rid damp rid is available in these good-sized buckets or even in the bags you can get

it on Amazon as well and basically what it is it's a desiccant it's a special these beads that are designed to absorb moisture from the air. Chuck a couple of those in the trunk, they will absorb all the moisture from that condensation and dry it out quite nicely. And for replacing that press wood board there, what I would do for that is go down to Home Depot again or Lowe's and get a sheet of what's called Luan. It's a very thin, very strong plywood. only about an eighth of an inch to a quarter of an inch thick and just drop that piece on it

draw it out and cut around it and slap that in place of it well i'll tell you what ben that's great advice from rick and i'll tell you what i know firsthand i've been using uh dampred um all facets of it um it's whatever whatever you're going to use it for you could get the bags you can get the the buckets you can get anything you want you can get it scented you can get it plain. I use it everywhere. And at this time of year, I use it in my vehicle. I use it in my home. I've got stacks of dampred. I'm going to take that stock. And folks, one thing to remember with dampred, if you drop your phone in the water and everybody says, oh, put it in a bag of rice, no. Because rice will let dust get into your phone. Dampred will not put dust in anything.

Yeah. That was one thing I didn't know, and Rick turned me on to that. many, many years ago. Great advice, Ben. Yeah, the dump wood and it sounds good. Tell me, what is the thing you said, it's Luan, spell it? Spell it, do you know the spell it? Yeah, it's just L-U-A-N. And it's a very thin, very strong plywood-type material that you can, you know, just a simple little jigsaw

to cut around the shape of it and cut a hole for that little mounting piece in the middle where the bolt goes through. And that would replace that cardboard piece, but that pressed wood piece, even through Nissan, is probably going to be a couple hundred dollars. Yeah, I was looking at up. You're right about that. I don't want to spend that much on it. No.

And you know, you can get a piece of that Luan from Home Depot or Lowe's, and they'll even cut it down to almost the right size for you. And it's like you're looking at $25. So $25, $30 and a few minutes of work to cut it. and it'll save you a fortune that way. Okay, all right. Good advice. Next question, quick question. Now, the car soon needs tires.

I'm going to buy tires for the car pretty soon. Now, tire rotation. I know there's a pattern you have to follow, but let me ask you this because, you know, I'm kind of a do-it-yourself or somewhat halfway. Now, tire rotation, do you actually have to follow that pattern that's in the owner's manual,

or a good way to rate? tire tires is like you just do it in a way that the tire goes to the next side of the vehicle and it turns 180 degrees. Is that a good idea? Actually, I don't. I think that's the best way to do it. Well, not quite because here's the problem. Most cars, most manufacturers say the front tires should go to the back and the back tires straight to the front. And the reason for this is when, So radial tires, modern steel belted radial tires, which are everywhere, it's pretty much all you can get. If you put them on the other side of the car, reverse the direction of the tire, it can create what's called a radial tire pull. So as you're driving down the road, all of a sudden your car is going to drift to the right or the left, usually the right, because of the road crown.

and that's because those tires are not perfectly cylindrical and there's there's variations to the shape of them so what we usually do is if I get a customer comes in and says hey my car is pulling to one side of the other the very first thing I do is I swap the front tires and drive it and see if that corrects it and nine times out of a 10 swapping those tires left to right on the front of the car will make that car go perfectly straight again so yeah when you rotate them I always recommend front to the rear and rear to the front, and that's it. Okay, I mean, if that's the way, that's the way. That's the way, I think that's the modern way, but, you know, it's okay. I mean, my thinking, and I respect your advice, but I think the Thai should actually turn 180 degrees and, you know, that's not just me that's just me but I respect your advice more more power to you Ben I'd be aware if you do get that pull swap those front tires and odds are that'll take care of it right right Ben it's been a pleasure good luck and give us a call next week okay take care

good bye great weekend Earl do you have anything from your anonymous feedback that you could share with us I myself don't have let me check here While Earl's checking on that, I want to let everyone know that you can vote on the Mystery Shopping Report, and the Mystery Shopper Report comes to you from none other than the famous Napleton North Palm Hyundai. And you can use our text number at 772-4976530. Shot that down so that you can vote because your vote really matters. want to hear from you and know how you feel about any and all of the mystery shopping reports. I got an honest feedback, but it's too long.

So let's do the, I promise to read it next week. My fault. Do you want to do the mystery shopping? Yeah, let's do the mystery. Okay, yeah, I see by the clock and Jonathan has given me the signal. Again, Napleton, North Palm, Hyundai. Earl take it away well for you regulars Napleton's North Palm Beach Hyundai is the Wow Wild West it's close to the studio here we're very close

to probably one of the most infamous car dealerships in the world and Napleton is one of the most infamous dealers in the world I mean the manufacturers are in Napleton, Naples saw in the manufacturers. The Federal Trade Commission is placid and inactive as they are. They actually have fine Napleton. I mean, you're really got to be bad for the Attorney General

or the Federal Trade Commission to come after you because dealers have immunity against prosecution. And I don't know where they got that, who they work to deal that with. But Naples is so bad that they still go after them. And here we are, with a mystery shopping report with, I can say, Satan himself.

Napleton, North Palm Beach, Hyundai, and we'll... They're invincible. Yeah, and I hate to prejudice a report, but I mean, when your name prejudices you, you've got a problem, and that's what we have. I'm going to talk if we have time after the report to our new Attorney General.

Rick? One of my YouTubers, Johnny Artie, said i already have my grade for napleton we have a new attorney general in florida they uh the last attorney general we had was so bad and and did so little to stop the dealers in her tenure that they promoted her to the united states attorney general so you can't make this stuff up. Now, and our brilliant governor has appointed a guy named James Uthmeier. Look at.

Uth-M-I-E-R. James Uthmeier is our new Florida Attorney General. So remember that name because he may be president of the United States one day. If he's bad enough. Soon. Yeah. Pam Bondi, or was it Ashley Booty? Who knows? They're all bad.

They were all good. Who did what? Okay. So here we go. Who is more effective? Agent Lightning. Nobody. We need to get the Congressional Medal of Honor for venturing into hell.

She went into hell. Unarmed. To do her job. And she asked for Satan, and we have it here. Okay. They said, which one do you want? Five of them are busy. I arrived, not speaking as if I were actual Agent Lightning, a lady.

I arrived, mid-afternoon, walked around the lot for about five minutes before hitting inside. I was immediately greeted by a younger guy sitting at the customer service counter. He asked, are you here to see anyone in particular, or can I help you with anything? I replied, I'm here to, possibly buy a new car. He said to have someone assist me, pageed over the intercom, and for someone to come into the front where I was. I walked around the showroom floor, checking out all the cars inside. After a while, I went back to him and asked if anyone was coming. He said, let me try paging someone for you again.

All this time, a salesman had been sitting at his desk on his phone, and lo and behold, that ended up being the person who finally came over to me. Eleven minutes later, he entered himself as Sean. I told them I was interested in the gray 2,025 Sonata, limited hybrid. I had their listing for one with an MSRP of $39,525, an advertised price of $38,525. So the MSRP, manufacturer's suggested retail was $1,000 above the advertised price. so they had a $1,000 discount in the advertised price. And James Uthmeyer, AG, for Florida,

when you advertise a price, the law says you've got to sell it for that price. If you don't know that, maybe you can listen to our show and we can help you. So that's for a new attorney general, James Uthmire. So back to my role as Agent Lightning. I said, oh, no, I'm the salesman now. I said, are you set on a hybrid? I replied, yes, I really like this one in particular. Why, is it not available?

He said, no, it is. I was just asking to be sure. Sean then asked, are you planning to pay cash, finance, or lease? Well, that's basics, that's the basics and fundamentals. He's got a page in his manual of how to screw the customer entitled cash. And then the next chapter is, how to screw the customer, if they finance, and then the last lease, how to really screw the customer if they lease. So I answered cash, which is a good answer.

Harder to be taken advantage of and deceived if you pay cash, but we all can't pay cash, can we? Sometimes we have to borrow the money or a lease. As we sat at his desk, a co-worker came over and handed them a new license plate. He thanked the co-worker, then turned to me and said, I'll be right back. I need to go put this plate on, for a customer.

I asked, is it going to be very long. He said, no, just a few minutes. Three minutes later, that was short. I returned, I asked, did you just sell a car? Sean smiled big and said, I'm about to make it too. I then pointed at me and said, now I'm going to sell you a car too. So he's very happy. Sean was very happy.

He told me he'd be back shortly with some numbers. About five minutes later, returned with Andre, his sales manager, and a price sheet. Salesman's name is Andre. The top line on this particular vehicle was MSRP of $39,525, and there wasn't a discount. Okay, now remember what my advertised price was,

$1,000 less than MSRP. So that's the law, and I hope Uthmire is listening. They added an $899 dealer service fee, $899 dealer service fee, a.k.a. junk fee. Then they added $129 e-tag file. That's another junk fee. But wait, there's more. $149 private tag agency fee.

Another junk fee. And here we go again. $199, $199, $199 documentation fee. wait there's still more a $217.50 for doc stamps now doc stamps there are no doc stamps and not only is this is a junk feed it's a lie because I've already told the salesman I'm not going to finance I'm paying cash documentation stamps only apply on a loan and the loan only is given by the not the dealer but the lender the bank, and the money doesn't go to the dealer.

So it's a double whammy lie that they called it dock stamps. But if you add it all together, all the junk fees, $1,593.50. Okay, and remember what I said, Oothmire, you heard what the advertised price was. The law says, Florida law says, you got to sell the car for the advertised price. so we're so far above the advertised price now I forgot what it was but it's way thousands thousands of dollars okay my price was now 41,11818 and as I said Uthmire the advertised price was 38 595 thank you thank you Rick 38 595 So I said, when you plan on buying it today, tomorrow, he says, well, I love this, classic.

Well, these aren't the numbers. These aren't my best numbers. Is this the only car you're looking at? I said, depends on the price you show me. Andre says, where do you want to be on the pricing? I said, realistically, I like to be at or below MSRP out the door. He smiled and said, listen to this, particularly YouTubers who will really appreciate this. He smiled and said, this is a salesman.

I wish all our customers were as transparent as you. You really get to the point. Now, here is the most untransparent human being on the planet, a Napleton Hyundai salesman, complimenting the customer, who is our Mr. Shopper, on being transparent so uh you swear we made this we didn't make it up this really happened uh that's the reason we have never been sued knock on wood but uh if they sue i hope they sue us i i love to have a jury trial on tv of me being sued by napleton dunday that would be worth the price of admission one okay while henri was gone shone and i chatted he was really sweet he said

daughter is a lucky girl. This would be an amazing first car. He mentioned they might still have a 2024 model on the lot. So we looked at it, looked it up online. I saw that it had a price reduction of over $3,500 and made a note to ask Andre when he came back. That was a manager. And a manager returned, I asked him about the 2024. He said, if it's still available I can be a bit more aggressive with pricing. Sean suggested checking to see if it was actually available. Andre left to work up some numbers on it a few minutes later. They both return. John said it's no longer available according to Manny. I don't know who Manny is. Andre added if you're open to looking at another 2024, I could definitely be more

aggressive on those than on the 2025, which is true. I thank them both. And we to leave. Andre said tomorrow is the end of the month and we're trying to move cars. Oh yeah. Got to move. Move them. Move them. After tomorrow the numbers may change. I said, I understand that.

And left. So there you have it. And Uthmire, James Uthmire, Florida Attorney General. I sure hope that you are listening. And I hope you can do a better job keeping the dealer straight in Florida

than your two predecessors or for that matter all the way back to Bob Butterworth. Bob Butterworth was the Attorney General when the chauffeur started and none of the Attorney General's did the job. Now we've got to vote and we vote

on a scale and say we don't have an absolute voting system, not A, B, C, D. It's on the curve. And you know what the curve is when you're at school. if you're average, no matter how many questions

you answer right or wrong, as long as your average, that's a C. Unfortunately, the average car dealer is a bandit, and therefore we have to factor in that. So when you give an A, it really doesn't make any sense.

And an F, you know, grade on the curve is better for the people that refer to our good dealer, bad dealer in this, gives you a more of a logical choice. Okay.

Well, we've got John, Jonathan and Palm Coast says, I'll cut to the chase. Too many junk fees. Dealership is not selling at the advertised price. Unacceptable. Automatic F. Bob in Maryland says, unfortunately, Napleton North Palm Beach gets good Google reviews.

Yeah, you can buy those. Thankfully, it shows a real situation. That is sad. That is sad, you know. Yeah. The salesperson said he was about to make two sales. I'm about to make it to F's for Napleton, as I've given them an F before. Anne-Marie says F doesn't cover all the illegal behavior in this case.

They deserve a cue in order to quarantine them from the buying public. Oh my gosh. Quarantine. She wants them quarantine. That sounds like a great idea. Nigan once says F. Surprise they didn't put tariff as a junk fee. Tim Gilliland says, I guess there's something to be said for consistency, F.

Tom Steckle, Napleton defines an F grade. They should add a Napleton fee of $66, revealing their true identity. Compare Central Florida Hyundai, no dealer fees or add-ons. Donovan Lewis, F for fees. Johnny Z. Fradley, even with all of those nonsense fees, they've gotten a little better, so I'll give them an F-plus. Nate Miller, things are always guaranteed to disappoint. The Pittsburgh Steelers under head coach Mike Tomlin, your local weather forecast accuracy,

and a mystery shopping report from Napleton, F-minus. T-Cash says F, the same old runaround. And Brian Siddletco, F for false advertisement. Myself, I'm... who we got a couple others roadrunner steve says z minus and frank from jupiter farm says i only heard it was napleton and knew it was going to be an f the review justified the f myself i'm going to say i'm i'm not going to go all the way to the d or the f level i'm going to say a d uh just because they they kind of were above board with all the junk fees

they just said hey here they are this is what we're charging and you're giving you yeah so i say a d i say if you go in there and you really beat them half to death with it you might be able to get a reasonable price but it is napleton so look out when you get in the box yeah yeah exactly okay i have a question for you the attorney general that you mentioned uh has is he active right now as Attorney General? He was appointed by Governor DeSantis appointed, and he probably hasn't got completely moved in and acclimated yet. So Ashley Moody is still?

No, no, she's running the country now. She's a top law enforcement officer in the United States. I heard that. I'm questioning ChatGBT. Oh, was that Pam Bondi? I'm getting confused. I'm questioning ChatGBT, because I'm getting different answers here. So, but at any rate, back to Ableton, my goodness, I've got to say they're consistent.

You know, I've got to give him that. They're very consistent. Jack the Ripper, he was consistent. Pardon me? Jack the Ripper was consistent. This is true. This is very true. There's a crowd waiting for Rick out in the parking lot.

They're going to rough him up. I just got a text about his grade. Uh-oh. Don't worry. I'll protect you. I'm going to give them an F. You know, I'm going to give them an F too. And Rick just accidentally let me know something.

I mean, I knew that you could fudge Google reviews. And I always cautioned people. I had no idea. Now, I just pulled up the Google review. I didn't believe you're YouTuber. So I pulled up the Google review for Napleson's North Lake. Oh, I'm sorry, this is just as bad. I'm looking at the wrong one.

Neville's North Lake Kia with a 4.6 Google review. So I put it in wrong. Pull up on North Lake Hyundai and see what their Google review is. But it is, here's alert to all listeners. Our research will be done for next week, but I am so disappointed to hear that Google is dropping the ball in policing their reviews. It used to be not perfect, but the most reliable review.

And if Napleson North Lake Kia and Napleson anything has got a high Google review, almost five stars, then Google is dropping the ball. So I'm just, I'm coming apart at the seams. It's like Costco or Consumer Report are one of the people that I used to rely on is not doing the job. Yeah. Napleton's North Palm Hyundai. Yeah. 3,678 Google reviews, 4.5 stars.

BS, BS. What a shock. Their Yelp rating, this is from Yelp.com, 183 reviews, 1.9. Yeah. Boy, I tell you what, when you lie, cheat, and steal, you do it everywhere. So they're light sheet and stealing their customers, and they're light sheet and steal on Google.

And here's a couple others that makes me question them as well. Cars.com reviews Napleton's North Palm Hyundai as 4.8 with 1,6 reviews. And Kelly Blue Book, with 3,677 reviews, says 4.6 stars. Oh, please. Okay, you saw the shopping report. Lies? I'll tell you what. Absolutely. Hey, here's some breaking news about Toyota.

Production of Two American Made All Electric Models Is Slated to begin next year, joining three new imported EVs. Isn't this excited for Toyota? Sure, it is. It's an amazing time. Folks, thanks for joining us this morning. We had a great time, and we enjoyed your company. Have a wonderful weekend.

We'll be right back here next week at the same time. a.m. on Saturday morning. Have a fabulous weekend.