Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.01.2024 - The Best of Earl on Cars with Mystery Shop of Mercedes-Benz of Coconut Creek, FL.

Episode Date: June 1, 2024

This is replay of a previous segment of the Earl on Cars program. Agent Lightning travels to Ft. Lauderdale to mystery shop a local Mercedes Benz dealer and see how much over sticker they will charge her for a new 2024 Mercedes Benz SUV. If you have a question for our auto expert team, you can text it us at 772-497-6530 or submit it online at www.youranonymousfeeedback.com, and we'll answer it during our next live program. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting South Florida dealership. And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. We're back. We're live and in color. We're here to help you how to tell you and coach you on not being taking advantage of by car dealers. I sometimes say ripped off.

of a crude term, but sometimes when you go through the experience that many dealers put you through, you feel like saying some crude things. And we'll give you some ways to work around that. We've been doing the show for a long, long time, about 20 years, and things have changed a lot in the past 20 years. Actually, you probably don't recognize it, but it is getting better. And we have tools today that if you learn how to use those tools, things like, you're the internet

and actually artificial intelligence. I know that's a word that's being bandied about all the time now, but it's pretty strong and it's pretty helpful to a lot of people in a lot of ways. And buying a car is one of them. You can go online and there are

tools online. They can give you the information. They can give you the best car at the very best price and from the best dealer and also able to get the best service. Not easy. It should be, but it's not. I mean, if you want to buy a smartphone and you go into an Apple store, that's really easy.

If you want to buy just about anything, you go into a Costco store, that's really easy. These retailers have learned that the 21st century consumer, and they actually learned it in the 20th century, it's pretty educated and demanding, and if they want to prosper, meaning the seller, the retailers, They have to meet the needs of those buyers. Car dealers, and you regular listeners, I know I'm boring you on this, car dealers have been frozen in time for about 100 years. It would make a great movie. It's almost like one of these prehistoric creatures that's frozen in the ice

and is defrosted and suddenly begins to roam the earth. Well, car dealers are still frozen in ice, but they're roaming too. and they just are not treating you the way a 21st century buyer should be treated. So here we are. Now, the surprising part is our callers and our texters and our YouTubers and our Facebookers, the people that are communicating with us on this live talk radio show are probably as important if not more important than anything we can tell you. We get some of the greatest questions.

remember questions prompt answers or sometimes they prompt we don't know and then we find out but that interaction the question the answers the suggestions the criticisms preferably constructive but any kind of criticism we accept because we're live you know calls and tell us what's on your mind these these promote a two hours of idea exchange very valuable to you before you wander out and begin to buy a used car or new car or maintain or repair a car. Now, this show started out as pretty much how to buy or lease a car. And then we realize that there's a whole lot more problems encountered in maintaining your car and repairing your car when it needs to be repaired.

So we have an expert in the studio, his name is Rick Kearney. He is a certified diagnostic master technician. and I know it's more glamorous to buy a car than a repair car when you buy a car it's fun to some people until you get to the car dealership but it's a nice experience bring that shiny nuke or shiny used car home

and you show it to your neighbors and your friends when you're always you drive it it smells so good and fresh run so well so much better than that old car it's kind of like it makes your day makes you're weak you know But when the car breaks, you're in a bad mood. Now you've got to go find somebody to fix it, and that's where your problems begin. Call Rick Kearney at 877-960-99-60.

That's 877-960-960 if you're contemplating or suffering with a problem with your car. If you're just worried about it, maybe a noise or an odor, maybe a rattle, all those things that, you say, That's probably nothing wrong, but maybe. And when you're going 75, 80 miles down the road on the turnpike, you don't want some little thing that just sounded bad to turn into something dangerous. So better to check it out and talk to somebody who knows. And guess what, it's free. Rick Kearney, it does not charge you.

That's where he makes his living. He's worked for me for over 25 years. And that's why he earns his living, fixing, diagnosing, a mixing. people happy again after their car breaks. So call Rick, describe your problem. Now, if you don't want to call, live radio can be, you know, daunting, threatening. You can text. We have a text number.

That number is 772-4976530. That's 772-497-6530. My son, Stu Stewart normally takes a text. He probably won't be coming in this morning. He's not feeling well. So Rick will be watching those too. The 772-497-6530. So I know you probably don't want to call now.

We're going to be in the air for two hours. We'll be on the air until 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. That's a two-hour show. So if you tune us in, tune us out. Later on, you come online and you decide to listen or watch us. You can stream us on Facebook. You can stream us on YouTube. That's YouTube.com forward slash.

Erlenkars, YouTube.com forward slash Erlan Cars. And you can post, actually, directly to Rick, because Rick Kearney, the certified diagnostic master technician I was just talking about, monitors the YouTube channel. He's monitoring the texting as well if my son Sue Stewart doesn't show up. And you can also reach us on Facebook, facebook.com, forward slash hurlun cars and post there too. So there's dozens of ways to get in touch with us.

I know this is boring stuff, but it's something we need to get out there because if you haven't listened to the show before, we want you to know how to contact us. And the unique line we have that nobody that I know has this is called Anonymous Feedback.com. It's a company called Incognito. If business people or retailers or anybody out there are interested,

it's spelled differently, but you could Google it. Incognito, I-N-C-O-G-N-E-A-T-O. Not the way the normal incognito is spelled. I-N-C-O-G, N-E-A-T-O. Google that. It's a company that came up with a great idea. They give various means of communication for people that want to take surveys, that want to get candid, open expressions to protect your privacy,

It's a wonderful way to call the show or contact the show. We don't know who you are. We don't know where you are. If we get angry, we can't come and get you because you're anonymous. Your anonymous Feedback.com. You are A-N-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S feedback. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. And we'll check it out and we'll answer you.

If you want to reply, you can say, check a box that says, please reply, and then we can get back to you. So that's where we are. My co-host, Nancy Stewart, is sitting right next to me, shuffling papers over there. And she's the pretty one in the studio, if you're streaming us. And she's also my, well, she's my partner. She's been with me for 20 years. Co-founded the show with me back umpteen years ago, when we're only half an hour.

And she is not only the co-host, but she's a female advocate. her strong suit is she is the one that got this show co-ed used to be at an old boys club and just a bunch of guys were calling the show you know guys like cars especially older guys like me I mean cars are our thing you know we like to tinker with them and not me but a lot of people do and they like to go fast I like to go fast and it's a car cars are kind of a guy thing Nancy has turned the car show or one cars into a co-ed association and we get a lot of female callers we're about 50-50 I know I know 50% are listening because over 50% of you ladies are buying cars and bring them in for

service so you need the information probably more than the men do so Nancy Stewart is going to tell you right now about a unique offer if you haven't heard the show before if you're new and especially if you're female this offer sounds too good to be true but it is true you have my word on it and you have Nancy's word on it

a special offer if you will call the show and by the way if you call the show you get preferential treatment because we put you ahead of everybody ahead of the texters ahead of the non-ins feedbackers ahead of the Facebookers because the live radio show call in we only have five lines

we got to get you fast we don't want you to hold and hold and hold so Nancy will stop the show and push your call through. Nancy, the mic is all yours. Good morning, everyone. Give us a call tool free at 877-9-60-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We have a whole lot to get to.

First, I'll mention, the Boys Club. And, well, cars were important to me, you know, way back when in the 50s, And things haven't come. Well, they're really stuck, I think, and there's a lot of work to be done for the ladies. That is the work I mention is recognition and respect. It's extremely important.

This morning we're excited to offer a special promotion just for our female listeners. The first two new lady callers will receive $50, yes, $50, as a way of showing our appreciation for your support. We value your input and aim to build a strong female audience. Can I say, can I interrupt? Nancy personally makes these checks out, and she gets the contact information from Jeremy in the studio. So if you're a first time new female caller, she will guarantee, she writes a checkout, she mails it to you personally,

she addresses the envelope, puts a stamp on it, and puts it in the mailbox. So this is not a scam offer. It sounds too good to be true, but she really personally looks into it. I'll add to that that I personally talk to most of the ladies. Can't get to all them, but I do speak to most of them. Back to what I was saying, ladies, give us a call, your experience. purchasing, leasing, servicing. There's a whole lot of us in service, in sales, in leasing,

and we want to hear from you and your perspective. If you'd just like to give us a call to say hello, that's acceptable to 877-9-60-9-60. For the first two ladies, $50. We have a whole lot more, as I see, said to get to, we're going to talk about the FTC, Earl's conversation just yesterday, I believe, and he's, well, moving forward, and he's staying focused as far as that is concerned, because guess what, he has you in mind, the consumer. Please give us a call, 877-960-99-60, and don't forget about your anonymous feedback. Your anonymous

Feedback.com. Now back to the recovering car dealer. You know, I think we over-emphasize new cars on this show. I don't think we emphasize used cars as much as we should and certainly service.

I just want you to, there's an article in today's Wall Street Journal, and it addresses used cars. If you're older and if you bought cars 35, 40 years ago, a used car was just like

playing Russian roulette. It was just absolutely spinning the chamber of the revolver and pulling the trigger. You never know what you're going to get. Today, with the sophistication that we have of being able to analyze data,

and that's really pretty much what it is. It's the whole artificial intelligence, Google kind of a thing. Professionals, meaning car dealers, use car dealers, new car dealers, the world now is buying and selling used cars wholesale online. We're buying and selling used cars a whole industry,

the whole world buys and sells used cars online. That used to be, I remember when they first started doing that, I said a man would have to be crazy, a woman would have to be crazy, to buy a car, a used car sight unseen. car dealers, including me, are, we have a Toyota dealership for the past almost 50 years in northern Palm Beach County. And an important part of our business is selling used cars. And we have an employee, his name is Ted Caboos, actually, and his full-time job as wholesaler is going to auctions. He used to fly around the country.

He used to go all over buying used cars at wholesale auctions. Now, he doesn't go to auctions anymore. They still have auctions. Some people still go to the auction. Well, they do have auctions, but they're online auctions. So Ted Kaboosh, out of his home, has a nice setup of an office with monitors and screens, a computer. and he goes from online auction to online auction

and he sells the cars that we want to wholesale and he buys the cars that we want to buy that we want to sell use cars. And the guarantees are such and the process is such that it's safer than we used to go to a physical auction where he did. I didn't go to that many but when he goes out there

just like an auction and the car wheels up and they got an auctioneer up here with a gavel and he's hitting the table and people are screaming and now and you know the old-fashioned auction. That's the way cars were bought. So here's an evolution of the car business

in the 21st century. You can do the same thing now. You go online, and this is the nature, by the way, of the Wall Street Journal Art Club. Nancy showed me that this morning. I'll show you. It's today's, it's in the herd on the street section of today's Wall Street Journal, but I can summarize it for you. It says, if you're

going to buy used car, buy it online. Buy it online. You have a lot of a car guru, auto trader, and you have the ability to shop for the price online. You regular listeners know what I'm talking about, what I'm saying online, but given that, that you can actually buy a car as safely as you buy a new car today, that option really opens up a lot of savings for you. I mean, when you buy a new car, you're paying for the

prestige of that new car. The new car spell, nobody's ever owned it before, you know, you know what I'm talking about. But when you buy a one-year-old car, all that depreciation is a call. I think we must have a call there. We do not. But what you're saying is extremely important, but I want

to add something to that, you know, in this 21st century, There's two reasons, ladies and gentlemen, that you would go into a dealership. You would physically visit a dealership, and those two reasons are that you would be test driving or the car was going to be delivered to you and you were going to drive off the lot. Continue. Yeah, there's one old-fashioned thing that you should always follow. As we're talking about used cars now, I'm talking about used cars.

is having it checked over by a qualified technician. And you want a certified technician generally in all categories, you can pay him $200 and he can do a quick check on the car for you. It's the best $200 you'll ever spend. And Rick Kearney is, you know, he checks out a lot of these cars.

And there are certain key things you go over. He can tell you if it's been in a flood. He can tell you if it's been an hailstorm. He can tell you of anything that's in the computer. The service history, the repair history. All this information is available, and that's the reason we can safely buy and sell cars online. Professionals, the car dealers are doing. So if they can do it, you can do it, and you can be perfectly safe and buy the car

and enjoy the first couple of years depreciation, which is huge. and get a low mileage, almost new car, for a much less thing you'd have to pay. Hey, great information, Earl. We're going to go to the phones, and we're going to talk to one of our regular callers, and that is Jersey Mike. Good morning, Jersey. Good morning, folks. Can I call you Jersey?

Yes, you can if you'd like. Several things. I want to talk to Earl about him going fast. Well, he and I share that because we're about the same age. And back in the day, I bought a 69 Corvette 427 just before they cut all the engines, the muscle cars, it was one of the last. And I think the AC COBRO was the only one that was ever built to beat it. And it did just a little bit, because they've always been in competition.

You know, Ford and Chevy has always been that way. In any case, that car did zero to 60 and 4.0 seconds flat. That's by stopwatch on a numerous number of runs. And I really worked the car row. So you know what I'm talking about, Earl, right? Yeah, that was a huge, I mean, anything, six seconds was considered phenomenal. Four seconds was off the chart. It was just too fast.

Of course, now we're looking at under two seconds. And Tesla's got a car coming up that they say will be under one second. I can't imagine that. Yeah, I understand. But you know what? That new total hybrid is a very dangerous. car. People don't know this, maybe perhaps, but two people froze to death up in Washington or Oregon

in the last six months or whatever it was, the last winter, because the lithium battery freezes. And they were in a remote area. And it was in the news, I recall it. So, you know, I've got to be very careful about what you're doing, not to mention the fact that some of those cars catch fire, too, those lithium batteries. Well, that's true. course, if you're in a car in a blizzard and the car won't run, you're in pretty bad

shape anyway, whether you've got a lithium battery or not. But yeah, I get your point. But go back to the racing around. I only took the car out on weekends, and anybody I would come up alongside me, I never lost. I mean, you know, and I had it for, I guess, maybe like seven or eight years, okay? I paid $75 for it, and I sold it for $75,000, believe or not. I have a lot of fun with it in the meantime, and I wish I held out to it because if I would have put it in a barometric chamber, I probably could have got $80,000 for today at auction, you know? But anyway, I didn't do that, and I just had a lot of fun. I only lost one time to what's called a real sleeper, which Earl would know what that is. It was a 1978 Dodge Duster

P-green color, and we were going on Route 80, coming outside of New York, 30, and it was in the evening around midnight, 1230, and the three lanes coming out, going from barely to California, basically. In any case, I'm in the middle lane, speed limit at that time used to be 55 miles on out because we had a gas shortage. People stayed in the line, a gas lane for, like, a hour to get gas, if they got it, luckily, okay? But in any case, this car comes up alongside me in the slow lane, downshed. So I'm looking, you know, it's just totally completely stock.

I mean, there's nothing on it that, no tack album there in the window, you know. And I'll tell you what, I had to get off about three miles down, about a mile down the road to get on another major highway to get to my home. And I brought it right down exactly where I knew my power curve was, which is about 2,200 RPN, got a very low rear-ended experience. On the weekends I would take it. Mike, you realize the only people enjoying this story are you and me and all the old guys out there.

Most of the people have no idea what you're talking about, but I do, and I know exactly the thrill that we had back 50, 60 years ago. And you know what, guys, I'm going to add to this, that, boy, do I see Corvettes everywhere. And, Mike, it is always a pleasure to speak to you. I've got four calls backed up, and I am going to have to move on. Drive safely. Drive safely, Mike. Yeah, and thank you for thinking of us on Saturday morning. Our phone number is 877-960-99-60.

That's 870-877-960. You can text us also at 772-4976530. Don't forget, we often talk about Earl's Vigilantes. It still exists. It's extremely important. and if you wish to join, you can go to Earl on Cars and you can join Earl's vigilantes. And we need volunteers.

The vigilantes are to help others in your geographic area. I don't know what's going on in Wyoming or Idaho or, for that matter, New York City. If we have people around the country and all over the world actually listening to the show, in your markets, you have unique problems. If you're a car person, a woman or man, that is in the cars, maybe listen to the show, educated consumer, you can volunteer. We give you a hat that says Earl's Vigilantees, and we put you on our website, are earluncars.com. Earlandcars.com as a representative of the Earl and Cars Show and people in your area, and maybe you know the same deal that they do, they're having a problem. You can give them some advice.

So, Earl's Leggillianis. I like the hat, and I like, where is the hat anyway? I haven't seen the hat in a long time. I think it's in my briefcase. Oh, boy, that's not a good place for it. Okay, so if you're an educated consumer and you want to, you know, help out. And you can, you know, there's a few tips you can share with your neighbor with everyone. And you don't have to know how to take an engine apart.

You can just have common knowledge, and you can join Earls Vigilantes at www.orgelsvigilantes.com. Again, our number is 877-960, and we are going to go to a few of our callers that have been holding. Good morning, Marty. How are you? Good morning. How are you? Great. Last week when Earl talked about, I guess it was Elon Musk's theory that you would pay only 25% in a car and the car would come to you when you need it and then it gets returned.

Well, I got to ask, girl, how would you handle millions of people doing that? How would you get all these cars to everybody in time to use the car? return the car. So I don't think that system, in my imagination, is ever going to work. Marty, have you ever used Uber or Lyft? Yes. Okay, that's the way it would be done. You'd have a worldwide mobile fleet of cars, and it's a numbers game.

And if you're in New York City, and Nancy and I used to travel a lot, to New York City. We haven't been there in a few years, but we've been doing that for a long time. One of the most hazardous, dangerous, frustrating problems in New York City was getting a cab. I couldn't hail a cab. I couldn't hail a. Nancy was my designated cab hale her because she was crazy enough to run out in the street and wave in the middle of Broadway for a cab to stop. But that's not my style. I haven't got that nerve. Suddenly, Uber came along. Now, if you're in New York City, all you do is whip your app out on your smartphone

and hit your app. They know who you are. They've got a description of you, where you are, and they generally guarantee they'll be there to pick you up in two minutes. So there's an example of what a mobile fleet can do. The only difference between Uber and what Elon Musk is talking about with Tesla is the cars will be autonomous. So, if anything, it'll be one of the criticisms Uber or Lyft is you're afraid of the driver. Well, there's no driver in the autonomous cars. Rick, what?

A quick note from Donovan here. He says, for the caller, Tesla showed off their new app that is a ride hailing app for Tesla owners to use their cars in an Uber style. So I guess you wouldn't even drive your car, but just let your car. It's just like Uber to lift. Great information. But my point, my only point is, if you have millions of people doing that,

I cannot see. First of all, you'd have to have millions of cars available. Well, you would. You're just talking about scale. It would take, it would have to build, just like Uber did. I mean, when Uber first came out, I was so fascinated

with the concept, I actually applied and became an Uber driver. I had to fill out all the applications. I actually was an Uber driver just to see what I was like. And it was a fascinating concept, but there were

so few cars around. Some communities wouldn't allow Uber in it. I know the airport banned Uber drivers. It was a growing painful, growing process. In a way, Uber and Lyft had paved the way for exactly the Tesla, the

Elon Musk, a robo-taxie kind of a concept. And so every country in the world now, you can go into any country, anywhere in the world, and take your Uber app and get a ride very efficiently. Oh, okay. I understand that. I'm just saying mechanically to have so many cars, if everybody did it, you'd take in West Palm Beach. I mean, right now, I don't know how many people have a car on West Palm Beach.

And if every single person here was in its system, you, I just feel it's almost an impossibility that you wouldn't have to wait around. See, 50 years ago, it would have been impossible today. We have a lot of words that a lot of people don't understand, but they're important. Our quantum computing is one of them. and computers today are so much bigger that I'm looking at the iPhone sitting here in the studio, my iPhone, my iPhone has more computing capacity

sitting in front of me, I could put it in my pocket, than the world's biggest computer 30 years ago. So if you go back in time, things were impossible. Today, this almost sounds like a, you know, pie in the sky, you know, I'm on LSD kind of a statement, but if you can imagine something today, it probably can be made to happen. If your mind, if the human mind can imagine a concept, it probably can be had with the high technology we have.

But trust me, on that one, Marty, this will happen. It will happen. It might not be the only answer. I think that people will still, some people will want to own a car. That's almost like an evolutionary, inherent feeling. People like to own things. So the guy that wants to own his own car, he might have to pay a million dollars for it, but that'll be chump change for the guy and he'll be able to afford it. But 99.9% of the population will be using timeshare, autonomous robot taxis.

Okay, Earl, I just hope we're both still alive to see that happen. Well, I'll double that. I hope we both are too. and you can include me in on that Marty I'm your age and Earl's age pretty close to it have a great day I'm gonna stick to owning my car yeah me too are you

thank you have a great weekend thank you the same to you Rick has a point just a thought but I bet if you counted the number of cars actually in operation right now that are driving right now actually physically driving I would bet there's probably 20 cars

for every one car driving there are 20 cars in Palm Beach County that are parked and that are ice cold because they have not been driven in the last five hours. Oh, sure, yeah. And that's the whole concept. I mean, think about it.

You buy an expensive asset. You buy an expensive piece of merchandise. The second most expensive thing you own. Your home is number one. Second thing is your car. and you park it in the garage 80% of the time or 75% of the time

or not the garage necessarily but wherever you park your car at the store at Publix wherever your car is we got a lot of people down here especially that have two cars they have one car they leave here for four or five months we it calls every

week my car won't start when I come back do I need a trickle charger blah blah blah I mean all this kind of stuff would go away remember In fact, it's still in effect. Soutman manufacturers came out with a way where you could buy a car, but switch cars back and forth.

You could buy a truck and say, well, I don't want the truck anymore. I want a compact. And then you can go back and I'll trade it. It would be a lease kind of thing. I'll trade that in for an SUV. There's still people that are doing that right now. But with a robo taxi, when you use your app, you decide that you want to haul some furniture.

you summon a truck. You decide you want to take your kids on a long vacation. You get a nine-passenger van. You decide you want to go somewhere with just your friend or your spouse, and it's a long trip, and it's going to be costly. You get a compact economy car. Good point. It's going to take a change in the mind and the psychology of the human race

because cars, it's kind of like the earlier color we had in the show. that had the mindset about drag racing in Corvettes. That changed, didn't it? And now this will change, too. I'm going to interrupt the conversation. Go back to the phones before I go to Howard. Ladies, $50 for the first tune lady callers. Come on, the lines are open.

877-960-99-60. Give us a call. Say hello. Good morning, Howard. Good morning, Howard. Hello, Howard. How are you today, Howard? Fine, everybody, I'm good.

I hope you all are good. Yeah, I'm enjoying this weather. Unfortunately, next Saturday I go back to New York. Oh, boy. I'll be back in November. But it's getting hot here, you know, so I don't mind it. Okay, so here's a little story I'll tell you. When I was up in New York last year,

battery went bad and the battery was four years old the original so I went to a place called AutoZone had a battery put in and just recently the battery started to die on me fortunately it was able to get it to AutoZone

they get you a battery but the battery was smaller it was 24F correct and all the specifications were perfected it had a reserve of like 175, which is very good. And I checked everything out, but the hold down is on, but it's not fully on.

It's steady. So what can I do about that? Normally when they sell a battery that has smaller dimensions like that, there's supposed to be an extra bracket. It's a plastic, almost like a honeycombed plastic piece that will snap to the bottom of the battery. and increase the height of the battery a little bit so that your hold down clamp will be able to secure it properly. If you don't have that, I would get to a part store as soon as possible and see if they have one available that you can install because it's a very dangerous situation that if the battery is not secured properly

and it's allowed to slide around. It can actually move a lot of cars. That battery can slide enough. that it might let the positive terminal contact that hold down clamp and it could actually start a fire under the hood. So that's something you wanna be very careful of. Earl has actually googled up

various hold down clants and adjuster pieces for that that are adjustable to hold it down tight. But you're gonna wanna make sure that you get that checked out and get that battery secured properly. Just go to Amazon and put in a battery bracket to accommodate different size, and you'll have a wide variety price anywhere from $8.99 to want to hear for $53.99. But you definitely follow Rick's advice.

You don't want that rattling around on you. Okay, great. One other thing, very important. The new Camry that's coming out next year, it'll be hybrid. And it's what exactly, how will it be different than the 2024? hybrid camera. I don't know, Rick. Do you know, it's typically we dealers are the last to know about the changes and models.

The manufacturers keep this really close to this because they like the excitement and the buildup. And they like to link it to the press before they even tell the dealers. But oftentimes, some of these really clever media. either online or magazines come up and they get the information before we do. I Google it. Here, I'm a car dealer, and I would probably Google that question, and I would probably get a third party that would know something I don't know as a Toyota dealer. Yeah, that's great information, Earl.

Howard, do you have any other questions? We have some calls back up. I know, yeah, you're backed up. Okay. So long, have a good day, and thanks for taking my call. Thanks, Howard. Have a safe trip back to New York. Ladies, we have Cindy on the line.

She's a first-time caller. But I want to let all of you know. I do expect to hear from one more new female caller. And if you didn't jot that number done, 877-960-960. When you're sell $50 this morning, I have $50 for one more new female caller. Good morning, Cindy, and welcome to the show. well thank you very much and you have won yourself $50 this morning as a first time call it thank you for calling because you're helping me build a platform right here at Earl on Cars

we would like to build our lady audience and you're doing that as we speak this morning stay on the line whenever we're finished talking and you can give your information to Jeremy in the control room. Okay. He'll pass it along to me, and I'll write you out of check and send it to you. Sounds great. What can we do for you this morning? Well, this is a favorite show of my husband, so he said, why don't you call Earl and ask him?

I bought a brand new Prius. I bought a brand new Prius. He ordered it in May of last year. It's a state-of-the-art kind of Prius with the sunroof and everything. And I am still waiting. I've talked to Matt and Jason, when am I going to get my new car? And they're saying that I'm up on the list only because two people canceled their orders. But I was curious as to why it's taking so long and when I can expect my car.

This is a question, and we'll get to Earl in a second. But this is a question that was asked often during the time of COVID. I'm sure you remember. But there's a lot of factors that affect the placing of an order and the delivery of it. So rather than me, Ramble, we'll go back to Earl. Okay, sounds great. As Nancy just said, it's not as bad a problem as it was a year ago, but it's still, especially for the high-demand, low-supply cars like this pre-issue describing.

I'll tell you what we can do, and I can speak to our new car inventory manager. Her name is Laura McElmore, by the way, and she's been with us for over 20 years. Locating the correct new car, specifically correct new car, is almost an art and a science. The science part, Laura's got the art part down, too. she has contacts with toilet dealers all over the country. And there's a whole cadre almost like an unofficial club of new car inventory managers. Think of it this way. A car dealer might have 100 cars in inventory.

But if you have 100 car dealers, then you have suddenly 10,000 cars in inventory. So we look at our inventory as all toilet dealers. We've literally gone to California sometimes. for very very difficult cars we try to deal more more closely so if you'll if you'll uh we've got your contact information so i'll i'll get that contact information and we will check it out in our computer i will contact laura macklemore and she will go on her a very very special hunt and see if she can find something that will speed up and expedite that we can't promise anything but as i say it's an art and a science i'll wait

because they said it was worth the wait. You've waited this long so you can wait if you have to. That's what my husband said. A little longer. But Cindy, I can tell you that Laura is special, and her talents reach long and far. She reaches, it's like a cult, and she helped me tremendously. And there are customers that are waiting for their vehicles. And there were a couple of customers of mine who were waiting for a vehicle.

And because I talked to me into changing their mind about something is, well, minute to me, is a color of a car. So there's a lot of things that are holding up the delivery of vehicles that have been ordered. But we are here to help you, Cindy, and to expedite that Prius order. And we will be getting back to you. okay i know that matt and jason are like you're going to like the car once you get it trust me i'm going yeah but yeah once you get it that's the key right right okay Cindy again thank you uh for uh representing uh all the women out there that are listening right now and that are well you know hesitate to give a call not everyone likes to talk on live on the air like you

but you have encouraged, believe me, a lot of women to give a call to Earl on cars. Well, thank you both very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Cindy. Have a great weekend. Hey, 77960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. And, you know, I said earlier, you know, that you shouldn't go into the... the vehicle, shouldn't go into the dealership unless you're going to test drive a car or you are going to physically take ownership of that vehicle. How do you feel about that? This online purchasing and getting all the information, more information than you would if you went into

the dealership, how do you feel about that? The times are a changing, ladies and gentlemen, give us a call tool-free. Give us your thoughts. We would love to hear from you because, as I always say, you make the show. Now back to the recovering car dealer. On that same subject, a conversation I had with my attorney that is preparing the amicus, which is a brief that we will submit to the circuit court in Texas and the Texas Automobile Dealers Association. were supporting the Federal Trade Commission's CARES Act combat auto retail scams.

And the attorney that was preparing the amicus for me asked a question, how do people get ripped off by CARD? He was a young guy. He's about 40. 40 is a young guy to me. And highly educated. I mean, he's an attorney. He's in charge of appeals for a very prominent

a legal firm and he says with all the tools we have online how are people being taken advantage of today and he needed this information preparing the amicus brief

that goes to the appellate court and I said you know a guy like you educated very online as part of your life I mean you've got a smartphone in your pocket you got PCs at home

at the office and everywhere else, you know what Google will do, you know what artificial intelligence is all about, quantum computing. I mean, you've got, you know, you've got all those things in your mind. But think about this. I said, you know, for example, I said, I live in South Florida, my dealerships in South Florida. I said, we have a very high immigration population down here. We have people that come here from Cuba, from Haiti, from all around the world. Florida is a little bit like Texas, so the fact that we have a lot of people that come in. So a lot of people living in South Florida, English is not their first language. I said, picture yourself in Haiti or in Veracruz or in Mexico City not speaking the language,

having to go in to buy an expensive product. You can't clearly understand the salesperson. You can't read any of the contracts or the papers that you're asked to sign. I said, these people are being victimized. And the population of this type of people is growing and growing in the United States every day. I said, then you have the fact that you're talking about going online. I said, I live in the area with an older demographic. We have, my average customer is in the late 50.

505, 56, 507 year old. I have customers that are in their 90s coming in, buying cars, having them service. Now, how many of those 80, 90, 70-year-old people are carrying a I-15 Pro Max in their pocket? Very few. A lot of them don't even have PCs. A lot of my customers say,

please don't text me. I don't do texting. So these are the victims. The women, particularly, are victims. And they're the people that were the women that were born in the 40s and the 50s and the 60s. That back in the era, you think it's a man-dominated world today. Try being 70 or 80 years old as a woman. Your husband probably statistically pre-deceases you.

And when your husband passes away, a woman, they didn't make the purchase. They weren't the one that bought the home. They bought the cars. made the decision on any of the expensive financial considerations. So now they're thrown into the world of the South Florida car dealer. Elderly widows, people whose language, English is not their first language, education is an issue, we all know that, how many high schools are really qualified, and how many people go all the way through high school, how many people are college graduates today.

So all these things combine to create a huge supply, if you will, of gullible people, and I use that term cautiously, because they're not gullible, they're just disadvantaged, and they get taken advantage of by cargills. So that's the reason this legislation is desperately needed, and this is a reason that we have to do everything we can not only to get this legislation through in July on the Federal Trade Commission, combat auto retail scale. but also to make it enforced. Regulations and laws don't do a damn bit of good

unless you enforce them. And we don't have the budgets with the enforcement agencies, the Consumer Affairs, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Federal Trade Commission, all these people that are supposed to be enforced regulations don't have the teams to go out there. to go out there so the dealers are getting away with buddy murder absolutely great information Earl and you know we we believe in a competitive market and it depends on a few factors here

and those factors are transparent pricing you know where consumers can compare prices prices for different products and that's the essence of capitalism. And Earl is doing a great job and he's not going to let you down. He never did. And cracking down on junk fees and lower costs for consumers, that's what he is all about. And he thinks about you. And that's what gives him, you know, the energy to move forward on this and never quit. We are going to go to our favorite. Female caller, and that is Tricia, and she's been holding, and Tricia calls us from Boka. Good morning, Tricia.

Welcome. Wow, I'm honored. Wow, favorite. How'd you like that in your introduction? I love it, but I don't know. Hopefully I'll help you with your advocacy to get more women to call because I'm going to tell you women. And I listen to this show every Saturdays ever since I signed up. And yes, they send out the 50 bucks right away, just like they say.

And it's my go-to show. So I hope that helps with other women wanting to call in. It will. It definitely will. It changes everything. It's encouraging. It definitely is for every female caller that's listening right now. They're listening to you.

Hey, Tricia, what can we do for you this morning? Okay, I have a two-part question. My first part question is very challenging for Rick. Okay, every once in a while I have the four lights to the left of the pseudometer go on, Rick, all four. Nothing is wrong. My tires aren't, you know, my tire pressure is okay, whatever, and then they might go off for a week and they'll come on. again. I've had this rhetoric three times. Every time they put in the computer analysis, it comes up, cannot read nothing wrong. Yesterday I went to my favorite mechanic, been around a very

long time. He used two computer boards. One of them even came up with a code, I don't know, UA 301 or something like that, unable to read or whatever it was, he even had to look it up. Cannot read it, cannot get a diagnostic, anything on it. He said, I can't help you because this is not showing me anything. Right now, my lights are off. So it seems when the diagnostic tool goes in there, the lights go off, but then they might come on a week from now. What's going on? No one could figure it out.

First question, what is the car, please? The year-making model? Yes, 2016, Honda-Fit. And I tell you, she had a birthday last weekend. She turned 100,000 miles. Oh, boy. Happy birthday. And the four lights that come on, what do they look, what do each of those four lights look like?

Oh, I know one's the tire one, one's the road hazard one I don't know how do I describe you know like the it's a standard for light to the left of the spedometer okay because the problem is

every manufacturer is going to have different lights in different spots um okay the fact that they're coming on like that and then going back off and there's nothing being recorded in history

to me that almost seems like a power or ground issue the first thing I would be looking at is I'd be checking the negative terminal on the battery and the ground source for the battery to make sure those are tight obviously checking the positive as well make sure that your connections that the battery are tight

but for your mechanic what I would be doing for him next is I would try pulling that instrument cluster out just enough that you can reach to the back of it where he can get to the back of it and try wiggling the wires and see if you've got a loose connection there and then trace where the ground wire is

because for some reason it just seems like ground wires are always the first thing to loosen up and start to cause a problem and I would go what's called a wiggle test where you're actually shaking the wire harness at various times to try to get something to simulate what condition is being caused. In other words, something is changing, and with cars, it's usually got to do with you're driving down the road, you hit the tiniest little bump, but that bump vibrates a wire that's a little bit loose, and it loses connection for a moment, and that's what triggers those lights to come up and on.

Now, when he has tested with his computer, were the lights on when he was testing it, or had they turned off already? Yes, yes, yes. That's the only time I test it with the lights on, yes. Okay, so they were actually, the lights were actually on, and it still wouldn't communicate. Correct. And now, usually, I've had several guys do this. When, after they test it, now the lights are off. Like, right today, the lights are off, because he just tested.

it yesterday. And that happened to the other guy I went to. He went to test it, put in the codes, the car, blah, blah, blah. Nothing came up. And I drove away, the lights went off. I don't know

if that has anything to do with it, but just letting you know what happened. I'll jump in here quickly. I Google this and you're not alone. There's a whole lot of people with your Honda Fit they're talking about the same thing

and it's baffled a lot of people one of the comments was that it was a self-check of the lights and it's still a glitch because it shouldn't be happening like that so you've got a chronic problem that's not unique to you

I would say you ought to go directly to Honda and talk about what happened be as specific as you can copy the dealer but once Honda gets into it, I think Honda needs to get a factory representative to address that. I know, I was thinking that,

but Honda's kind of charge me and arm and the leg just to do a test. Well, no, just get the factory, the manufacturer, to tell. See, the manufacturer should be able to contact the dealer. They might either dispatch a Honda factory technician to the dealership. He's the expert of experts. to take a look at it, or they might have some advice for them. But the dealer might try to overcharge you, but before you get overcharged, you need to get the correct diagnosis.

And the Honda manufacturer, the 800 number on their website, call them, give them the information on your car, give them your complaint, the name of the dealer, and they'll put the dealer together with the manufacturer, and you'll have the two of them working instead of just the one of them. Okay, so my second part, Part of the question is, all right, the car's running fine. Nothing, you know, I've had everything fixed.

She's, you know, over 100,000 miles. You know, she's running fine. What if I just don't do anything and just live with this? And it's not a real problem. It's just this stupid glitch. Well, that's okay if you have to, but you should. It'll take you five minutes to contact Honda. Call Honda, have information prepared, and go on record.

confirm in writing on email or text or something about what you said, just go on record with the manufacturer. And then if you still don't get any satisfaction, I agree, just keep on driving it until something happens. I hate to tell you that, but if it is a diagnostic check of

the diagnostic lights, which almost sounds like a joke, but apparently Honda does have something that causes the diagnostic lights to check themselves, And maybe there's a glitch in that. Well, that's actually called the bulb check is when you first start a car, all the lights will come on for a few seconds.

And the reason for that is if one of them is burned out, you would notice if that light doesn't light up. And mechanics look for this. When we get in the car, the first thing I do is I look to see when I start the car, do all the warning lights come on? Because if it's one doesn't, I know there's a problem. So the glitch could be causing all the warning lights to come on to check itself, and there's actually nothing along with the car. Right. See, that's why I say, you know, a wiring issue,

if you get to those wires and shake them, and suddenly those lights come on and off, on and off, now you've found where that connection is. And that's what Honda hopefully will tell the dealer to do. Right. So Rick is telling you to do it, you know, get Hans to tell the dealer to do it, and the dealer will do it. Yeah.

Okay. Second major question, nothing to do with this. As you know, I really eventually want a hybrid. I would like to find a Honda-Fit hybrid. The only ones I've seen are in Japan. Do they have them? Do you have them? Does anyone have them here in the U.S.?

I'm not familiar with a Honda hybrid availability, but I could Google that for you and while he's looking that up my buddy Donovan here which this guy is he is incredible he says for the caller I did a quick search

the car might need to have a carbon buildup check lots of people who have had this issue on Reddit which is a worldwide information sharing site. They've had carbon build-up issues that cause these lights to come on. So that may be something to have your mechanic try. A carbon build-up test,

which basically means that carbon is building up in the engine. It's certainly possible. I mean, I would give it a shot, maybe see if it run a quick carbon clean-out test And I got the answer. The Honda Fit is no longer available in the United States. Ah, okay. Okay. Rick, would you spell that, Reddick? Reddit. It's R-E-D-D-I-T.

And it's actually a collection of forum sites that they cover literally every subject in the world. Yeah, you can spend hours on that website. And even a few that aren't in this world. I mean, there's some wild things. stuff on there. So, Trish, Trisha, what do you think you'll do? I'm going to do that carbon buildup test. Oh, that's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah, the carbon buildup test is, I think, the way to go. Tricia, again, I have some callers to get to, and I want to thank you for, you know, giving us a call. regularly as you do. And I'm going to do a little advertising here for Earl's Vigilantes. You would be the first woman if you so choose to, you know, to sign up. And you can go to

www.orgelsvigilantes.com. And you can win yourself, well, you don't win. Just by joining, you get yourself a vigilante cap. And like I said earlier, you don't have to be able to, you know, disassemble an engine. You sound very knowledgeable, and you are definitely an educated consumer. Good luck with your Honda and the carbon build-up test. I've also wanted to sign up to be a secret shopper, but I haven't heard from anybody yet. Okay, well, you will, and you will soon. Again, Trisha, thank you so much for calling. So, 9960, text us at 772-497-6-530, and we will shortly get to the texts that have come in on Facebook, and Rick is going to take care of some YouTubes, and we are right now going to get to John from Palm City. Good morning, John.

Good morning. I have a question for Earl about a dealer franchise. About two or three weeks ago, you did a shopping report. Massey Yardley. Is that the same as the Yardley that had the revoked the franchise taken away and Stewart? You know, I'd forgotten about that. I think I don't

remember that, but that is, there's only one Massey Yardley. What happened John? Why did they take his franchise away? I have no idea. I heard that Chrysler took it away and nobody ever in a paper or anything. Oh, okay. I think that was... It's a motorcycle, Indian motorcycle dealership.

now. Yeah. That was during the Great Recession, you know, the, and the Chrysler was cutting way back and remember the government had to go in and subsidize Chrysler and General Motors. They didn't have to help Ford, but they did General Motors and Chrysler, and Chrysler was cutting the number, they had too many dealerships, so they cut Massey Yardley. It wasn't that he'd done anything wrong, it was just an economic thing. Well, that wasn't the only thing that happened in Stewart. Toyota or Stewart had their franchise taken away.

Well, that was a different story. ... by the manufacturer by the distributor. So the Stewart has noted, even could use car dealers, it's unbelievable with a reputation. But what I want to say is, why are the manufacturers, including an outfit like Napleton? Why are they so hesitant with all the complaints that are registered against a particular dealer, Why are they so hesitant to not revoke the franchise of these certain dealers? Well, there's two reasons. One reason is the state franchise laws, which were lobbied into effect by the car dealers.

They've got associations, I think they're tougher than the trial lawyers association. There are lobbying groups that are so powerful. They, to a large extent, run our country. They run the state legislatures. They run the Congress, the Senate. And that's what happened with the state laws. You almost have to be a murder and a rapist to be canceled as a dealer. It's absolutely impossible with the protection in state laws.

and that's why you don't see Napleston's and a lot of these other people that are terminated because the state protects them. The Florida Automobile Dealers Association, the Tampa Automobile Dealers Association, the Miami automobile dealers, the Jacksonville,

millions and millions of dollars are in these political action committees and this money funnels into Tallahassee and the laws are built to protect the dealers no matter what they do. The other reason is the fact that the manufacturers are primarily in business for one reason to make a profit. And the dealers that sell the most cars make the most profit for the manufacturers. Now, if you have a big dealer, and oftentimes the biggest dealers are the biggest crooks,

I mean, we have toilet dealers out there that are selling over 1,000 cars a month. We have some Toyota dealers that sell close to 2,000 cars a month. Now, the average Toyota dealer sells about 120 cars a month, so you can imagine when a naughty Toyota dealer that's selling 1,500 cars a month gets in trouble and people are complaining the courage you would take for the Toyota to cancel that dealership, which would knock out 1,500 new Toyotas a month that that dealer is buying from Toyota. So state lobbying legislature laws, protect the dealers, and the greed of the manufacturers are the reason that dealers are not disciplined and canceled when necessary when they disobey the rules. Well, another industry that I'll mention is Anheuser-Bush, they weren't hesitant to take away a franchise in Orlando from a very famous baseball player. They also revoked a franchise. I lived in New York then.

of a Nassau County, but why is a distributor called Harbor? And they were a big outfit, and they prepared with their lawyers, and they went and took action. So even in spite of state alcohol laws and everything, when they're wrong, they go get them. Yeah, the bear distributors don't have the lobby. And, you know, ironically, the reason the car dealers have the lobby is because of the manufacturers.

See, when the franchise system and the car dealer concept first came into, effect back with Henry Ford there was they didn't have a way to retail their cars they needed they needed the retail outlets to do it and it was like a gold mine to be able to have a franchise to sell these new this new phenomena these new fords and pretty soon new GM cars and so and so forth like that so the manufacturers were like demigods they were they would dictate to the dealers if you don't do this or do it

or this will take away your franchise and you need to buy 100 more new cars this month if you don't buy another 100 new cars from me the manufacturer I'm going to cancel your franchise and they were so vicious and they abused the car dealer network so bad

I'm talking about the manufacturers that the dealers unified it's just like why unions exist in this country because they were afraid of the employers. So they were afraid that the manufacturers

would cancel them and they went to the, they went to Florida and Georgia and all the states and they lobbied in laws to protect themselves. But it got out of control and they lobbied in so many laws that nobody can get rid of them now. The manufacturers

can't get rid of them. The regulators can't get rid of them. Once you have a franchise, to sell new cars in the United States, It is, in effect, a lifetime franchise. I mean, I'm a dealer. I'm a toilet dealer. I'm immune to Toyota.

They can criticize me, but they can't cancel my franchise. Because I suppose if I, again, if I was convicted or murder or rape or something, they might be able to cancel my franchise. But outside of that, I'm here for a long, long time. One fast topic, the union now came down south, Mercedes-Benz and Alabama, they voted to unionize, next it's coming into Tennessee with Volkswagen, so it looks like they came down here real strong and nobody knows who's going to be next. Yeah, the union is coming back.

They've got the auto manufacturers worried, and the union is making some big inroads in the south, which the South used to be immune to unions, and now they're a score. Starbucks, look at that. A lot of places you never thought even Amazon. So the unions are, the pendulum is swinging in the other direction. Yes. We'll see what happens because what they're worried about

is job security almost more than wages. Yeah, yeah. All right, guys, I'll let you go. Thank you, John. That's great hearing from you, John. Before we go on you further, I think I'm going to turn this over to Rick. He's got a lot of things going on over there who'd like to share with our listeners. Yeah, we've got an interesting one to hear from Donovan.

He says this week, Consumer Reports released the results of a survey on car maintenance costs. And Tesla, not surprising, came in with the lowest overall maintenance cost for the first 10 years of ownership. Years 1 through 5 is about 50% less, and for 10 years it's about $1,000 lower than the next closest brand of Buick, Toyota, and Lincoln. Not surprising, Land Rover had the highest cost of over $4,000 for the first five years of ownership with Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Infinity, and and Acura being the next most expensive for maintenance. The other interesting thing about that story, Donovan, I read that too,

is that of the top five the lowest maintenance cost, and you mentioned Tesla, that was number one, the lowest maintenance. But the other four were all-American-made cars. You had, I mean, Toyota was the only foreign car that foreign-owned manufacturer that was in the lowest cost Tesla, Buick, Lincoln and Ford all American companies

and only one Japanese company were in the top five in low maintenance. Yeah, that was a great article. I got a lot of phone calls about that and there were a lot of questions asked. Well, the good news is maintenance is just incredibly small compared to what it used to be.

So it used to be a huge consideration today is very, very minor. To what you just said, it used to be a huge consideration. I used to talk about it a lot. Okay, Rick, back to you. We are going to go to Anne-Marie's text. She says, good morning. Here's an update on the topic that we covered a while back.

The New York Times ran a story on April 23rd, written by their technology and privacy reporter, entitled How GM Tricked Millions of Drivers, into being spied on, including me. The reporter and her husband bought a Chevy Bolt back in December and Lexus Nexus, which this is spelled L-E-X-I-S, N-E-X-I-S, no relation to the Japanese carmaker, Lexus-N-E-Ris Solutions, and Ver-Risk,

where the two risk-profiling-dha-risk profiling companies that have been getting their detailed data ever since. Their car salesman said he enrolled the customers for OnStar because his pay was docked if he didn't do so because it was a mandate from General Motors which sends the dealership a report card each month tracking the percentage of signups. It turns out what car buyers are faced with multiple screens

for different programs, including OnStar, and smart driver that buyers can say yes to when buying a car. Obviously most people will opt right in on those screens. What the programs do can be confusing, but it was clear to the reporter that none of the programs that allow for over-the-air updates and allow GM the ability to track the vehicle's performance in case they ever need to make a recall,

ever mentioned turning the data over to risk management companies who will then sell the information to insurers. A General Motors spokeswoman said, based on customer feedback, we've decided to discontinue the smart driver product across all GM vehicles and unenroll all customers. This process will begin over the next few months. The story adds, last month GM stopped sharing data with the risk sharing companies and hired a new chief trust and privacy officer. It has been reported that there are other auto manufacturers that share data that ends up

with insurance companies. The trouble is that the cars don't report if a different person is driving. So if someone borrows your car, makes Jack Rabbit starts, speeds, and jams on the breaks, that data may be reported to a company who will sell it to your insurance company and your bill will go up even if you weren't the person driving wildly. I understand why automakers would like data coming in from connected vehicles so the company can see if there are any problems developing, which can necessitate a recall. That is acceptable and reasonable.

Speaking as a consumer, a car company selling a vehicle's data for extra price, to risk management companies and the insurance companies is not acceptable. It has been reported that Subaru shares data, but one is supposed to be able to opt out of that. So have you heard of any other automakers who share data with insurance providers? Does Toyota share data with risk assessment companies or insurance providers? and if so can that be stopped or avoided and for those that didn't read the New York Times there is a version of the story also on the site Jolopnik

well you know that's I look at this way sharing data and gathering data by other manufacturers is not a sin in and of itself in fact I think it's important that it be done I agree totally that it should not be sold. It should not be gathered, certainly for the purpose of selling and making a profit. But data from automobiles is vital to safer vehicles.

Here's an example. Nancy and I yesterday, we had lunch at a local restaurant, and we have a Tesla plaid. And we've talked on this show about our harrowing experiences with the autonomous fully self-driving feature. And we periodically get software updates and we try it out. Well, the last couple times we tried it out, it was frightening. We had some close calls. So we just decided we weren't going to do it anymore.

We got three software updates and I just ignored them. But the last software update I got, I read it, and I was so impressed. Now, getting back to Anne-Marie's point, Tesla gathers millions and millions of videos from all the hundreds of thousands or millions of Teslas on the road. They have cameras all over the car. They take these videos, and with the supercomputing, quantum computing we have now, they can feed these videos into these giant quantum supercomputers and they take the data from the safer drivers

and instead of having digital commands written out to tell the computer how to drive the car autonomously they convert the video, the actual video which the human brain you can't describe but the video itself in itself is a description of safe driving. So they've been feeding these videos into our car, Nancy's and my Tesla.

So we tried it yesterday. We were a restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens. We live in Jupiter. So we got out of the restaurant. We put it on autonomous. It said, take me home. And Nancy was nervous. I was nervous.

I had my hands on the wheel because you have to do that. Or it'll take away your autonomous. privileges. And so I kept my hands on my wheel. We changed lanes. We came to stoplights. We turned corners. It took us home totally safely with no excitement. Nothing. Nobody screamed or yelled. Nobody had to slam the bricks on. It was amazing. Pretty smooth. It was amazing. And so getting back to Anne-Marie's point, this is from data that is gathered by the car. Now, should Tesla share that with other auto manufacturers with autonomous cars? I say, yes.

Should they share that with insurance companies? I don't see why not. I think that I don't want them to share it for commercial reasons, and I do want the people that own the car to give the permission. So I think Anne-Marie's point is well taken. the owner of the vehicle should give the permission. I have given Tesla. Nancy and I have signed off on Tesla taking our data and using it.

So with all that, it is critical that this driving information be made available to the manufacturers and to the insurance companies. I mean, you know, I don't want to say my insurance premiums go up or Nancy doesn't want to see her insurance premiums go up. but by the same token she wants to see other drivers on the road

insurance premiums go up if they're bad drivers maybe they'll go up high enough where they'll stop driving but insurance companies are not all bad there are a lot of bad ones but there's a lot of good ones and there's also they're necessary

you have to have car insurance so privacy is an important issue but total privacy carrying things to the point where nobody can see anything I do I think is going too far so Anne-Marie, amazing question you're our best

our best texter by far Donovan, I'm sorry you tied with Anne-Marie let's put it this way Anne-Marie is our best female texter you know and Donovan of course leads to pack on

the guys He is amazing, and he is a book of knowledge like Anne Murray. The pair of them definitely help out the show. Definitely. Okay, this one is coming in from Nick. He says, when you purchase a new or used wheelchair accessible modified van, is the title flagged as rebuilt due to the floor being lowered or should the title remain unchanged?

I don't know. And that to me is a very interesting question because I don't think it would be a rebuilt title because a rebuilt title indicates a car that has been totaled in an accident and then rebuilt for to be back on the road. Whereas these wheelchair vans, they do actually cut a large section of the floor pan and they lower it in order to be able to modify it for the wheelchair lift and the ramp assemblies I should think it would simply be called

a modified vehicle not a rebuilt so therefore the title should remain completely normal yeah it also probably depends you just can't blank and say any modification

I plead ignorance on this and we'll do some research I was Googling while Rick was talking but my fingers weren't fast enough. There's an answer out there, and I'm sure a lot of people have encountered this, they're probably certified, I'm sure they're certified, handicap accessible companies that do this, and I'm sure to be certified to do this, they are not allowed to modify a vehicle in any way they would make it unsafe to the next owner. So that's what I feel we will Google that

or chat GBT or something and we'll get an answer to that. Unless Rick is finding it as we speak, we'll have it for you next week. While you're Googling, let me just talk about the mystery shopping report and I should have done this at the first of the show, but I didn't. this is such an important thing that we do on the show.

I don't want to pat us on the back. I don't want to... But when you do something that's really unique and really good, you've got to talk about it. And that's what we do with the mystery shopping report. Every time I talk to an attorney, every time I talk to the Federal Trade Commission, every time I talk to the media,

they all are amazed that we actually send an undercover agent every week into a car dealership somewhere in the country pretending to buy or lease a car and we report exactly what happened. The good, the bad, the ugly. We name names. We name dealerships. I said to the attorney

I was speaking to yesterday that because I love to tell attorneys this because they always have heart palpitations when I tell them that I go in and I pretend to buy a car and if I think the dealer broke the law, I

say so. And I name his name. I named the dealership, the salesman, the sales manager, and the lawyer looks at me like I've lost my mind, and I say, but I've never been sued in 20 years. And then he smiles and says, well, obviously, because truth is the perfect defense against liable and slander. Anyway, we are going to do this mystery shopping report in just in the next few minutes and we have a mystery shopping report in south florida sometimes we're in pennsylvania we do another south florida dealer uh today and it is uh as you regular listeners know uh south florida's a solomon gamora of the car dealer retail industry amazing any luck rick on that uh no because uh the only thing that came up was a huge list of reports

about salvage titles on used wheelchair vans that were totaled in an accident and then put back on the road. I'm going to guess that if you use a certified company to do a modification for a wheelchair or any handicap adaptation, I'm sure, because we're talking federal laws now, I'm sure that they're not going to allow a modification that could anyway make the vehicle unsafe. And that's what we're talking about. We'll verify this. We'll get the facts, and we'll get the texture, the official answer next week. Any more?

Let's see. Trying to check over the... Whoa, we just had a whole bunch pop up here. Let's see. Well, one question we do have here is from Kim. appreciates life, she says, I'm so torn between getting a Tesla or a Toyota slash Lexus SUV, the question is, which is more expensive to ensure? That's a great question. I'll have to Google that too. My guess would be the Tesla, but I'm not

sure what. Tesla has an issue with repairs because I am speaking as a Tesla owner, and Nancy and I have encountered that. I've had a few fender benders, not Nancy, it was me. And Tesla doesn't have very many repair shops for collision repair. All the dealers that they have, which are Tesla owned, can do the mechanical repairs, but they're very few collision certified. So when that happens, you're talking more cost. also uses different materials, high-tech, more expensive materials that will be used.

So I would say you're probably better off to go with a, if that's the measure of your decision-making, you're better off to go with a Lexus or what is the other Toyota? She said either a Toyota or a Lexus SUV. I think you're going to get, your insurance is going to be less in the Toyota Lexus. Well, and Donovan happened to kick in on that one as well. is, I am paying about a little over $600 a month, or $600 for a six-month policy on a Tesla Model Y. And he says he's with progressive insurance. That's good.

Six months. Well, I wonder why six months instead of a year. Don't know. I mean, I would think the longer the policy, the lower the price. But maybe he only needs to. Maybe he's going to sell it in six months. So that's probably a little. It's his needs.

My own personal, my vehicles, under State Farm, we actually pay each month. And we're, for two vehicles, we're just a little under $200. Yeah, but you're not month to month. Don't you have to sign a contract for? No, it's month to month to state farm, yeah. Oh, you can cancel a month. Oh, I didn't realize that. And, you know, I know a lot of, I know a lot of people that do just that.

They do month to month. I guess everybody does. What am I talking about? You know? You're talking to about a car. dealer who doesn't have to have personal insurance. So I've never, well, actually I did, I did

for the Tesla. That's right, I forgot. Yeah, the yeah. And, you know, on another subject, the Tesla, but have you noticed the number of Teslas that have the dense and the bangs and this and that, that are on the road?

I see one every morning when I go out in the garage. You mentioned, I told you I wanted to fix that. I could fix that. Anyway, back to Rick. Okay, we have, hmm. Okay, this is Roadrunner Steve.

He says, Tesla cameras in car, me and my girlfriend, no more in the back seat from Roadrunner, Steve. You know, that's really funny, but Tesla has got more cameras. I'm telling you, and you just have to get used to it, but I ever know that I go looking for cameras. I haven't even found, you know, when it shows up on my display screen, suddenly I got on, they did a software update a week or so ago. And I said, I didn't know they had a camera back there. And they hide them so well that they have cameras all over the car.

now on my display I can see 360 degrees you know you talk about being safe you know remember when the backup cam came out and I just could I was blown away everybody's got to have a backup cam and now with the Tesla we're driving it's actually distracted because when I'm driving now and I'm driving the Tesla I've got a picture I think I got six or eight cameras covering every angle around the car and then I've also got my side view mirrors I've still got that

I've still got my rear view mirror I've still got my eyeballs I can go like that so when I come to an intersection I'm thinking of making a turn suddenly I find my eyes hitting each camera the rear view mirror the side view mirror and I'm looking at it so much stuff I'm wondering maybe I got too much information.

And I'm looking at you. Yeah, and Nancy's looking at me like I'm crazy. But anyway, too much of a good thing is what I've done. That's pretty interesting, Jersey, Mike. I really like the way you think. And that doesn't stop me from changing my blasts in the car. You know, and there are so many women out there. Ladies, you don't have time to call in now, but there's another subject for you.

Give me a call next week. And it's done so quick that I don't even know if it can be caught on camera. I don't know. But I still do it. Anyway. I know one of the things I like on the Tesla forums on Reddit are the videos that people will post of what their testas will capture on video while the car is parked. Yeah. I mean, the amazing things that the car records, and you're nowhere's near the car.

Well, I could go to my app on my phone right now and I could pull up the Tesla parked in the studio parking lot here at the radio station and I can get a 360 view, 360-degree view. I can see inside the car, I can see behind and either side of the car at every angle. I can also blow the horn, pop the trunk, pop the, I can open it, I can unlock it or lock it. I mean, you know, it's every now and then, And then I'll be having a lunch somewhere, and the car will be out in the parking lot. And if I'm feeling evil, I will take out my app and wait until somebody's walking down the sidewalk and blow my Tesla horn just to see what happens.

Well, I'd be a little careful about that because, truth be told, one of the big things I see on that site are videos of people maliciously just for no reason, but they call them the Tesla. haters. Oh, a lot of them out there. They walk by with a piece of metal and gouged the paint on Teslas just because they don't like the brand. I can also summon my Tesla and it'll come over to where I am. That really gives some attention. I love that part because the amount of times in Florida that I've walked out of the mall, a store somewhere, and it's just a wall of rain coming down, you don't have an umbrella. You don't have any protection. The water's six inches deep in the lanes to your car. And if you could have your car pull right up under the cover to you. It is definitely a plastic. Speaking about parking cars and so on and so forth,

we have a mystery shop here that we have to get to. Before we do, I want to let everyone know. We didn't forget the dog of the week. We don't have. one this morning. I hope you went to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. That's www.bdrr.org. And you took a look at Millie. That's who we had last week. She came to us from Big Dog Ranch virtual and virtually. And we'll be back on Target next week with Big Dog Ranch. And, you know, I have to say, as a sidebar here, you know, not only do they have puppy land out there and the veterans, you know, a thing out there, but they have senior dogs, and these senior dogs are just so cute. And they're really set in their ways, just like us as seniors. And they too are

worth adopting. And don't forget about Earl's book, because a dog of the week, we will send you to www. Earlsbook.com because the dog of the week that we show all the proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch whenever you purchase that book. Okay, we're running out of time. I want to congratulate

our mystery shopper. Agent Lightning. Guess what? She just became a grandmother. Okay, we are going to go to Mercedes of Coconut Creek. And that was the mystery shop that she did this past week.

Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, as you said, Mercedes of Coconut Creek. Auto Nation owns that store. Most Auto Nation stores use the name Auto Nation, but the luxury car, for some reason, I think they lobbied against changing the name to Auto Nation. They want the luxury name that they invested so much in to remain on the dealer's shop.

sign. So when you go to a luxury dealership, you should check to see if it is AutoNation. I say that in a positive sense because automation stores generally do better in our mystery shopping reports. It's publicly owned. They're the largest or maybe the second largest retailer now of automobiles in the United States. So we mystery shop, Mercedes of Coconut Creek, which is in the Fort Lauderdale area of South Florida, the Sodom and Gamora of car retailing. I'll speak of the first person, as if I were, Agent Lightning. I arrived late afternoon and was greeted by Marcos, who was distracted taking pictures of a sports car

that had been brought into the showroom. He looked up, smiled, and mentioned, this car is absolutely gorgeous. I learned it was a used AMG GTR with 1,000 miles, and the asking price was $199,99,99, according to Marcos, there are only a few in the world, and this one just came in last night. Now, I hadn't, I wasn't familiar with this high-priced super-duper Mercedes, but I googled it,

and it's a hell of a good-looking car. I, apparently, I guess, is that the top of the line with Mercedes? I saw some of them advertised at $300,000 and $400,000. I had no idea on Mercedes had such a car but it's the AMG GTR only had a thousand miles on it back at the report

I said I have to agree do you have any specials going on right now not on the GTR but the car that I came in to see it's the end of the month and it's a slow day I underlined that when I read Stu's reports, Stu wrote this up because the end of the month

is supposed to be gangbusters, for some reason at this Auto Nation store, Mercedes of Coconut Creek, it was a slow day. So we're looking to make a sale, perfect timing, Marcos replied. Would you be open to pre-owned or do you prefer new? Used or new? What type of vehicle are you interested in? I think I prefer a smaller SUV. What do you have available? I ask. Marcos said and inquired, will you be trading in anything today? He showed me a few options. Explain how their models work. I decided on the GLA 250.

Let's go for a test drive, he suggested, asking for my license. The minority label was in the glove box. It's a little inside joke here, or not so inside every week. When we're in Florida, the minority label is never on the window where the federal government law,

federal law says it must be it's always someplace else. Sometimes it's on the dashboard, sometimes it's in the trunk, this one is in the glove box. Federal law says that the minority able must be in fixed to the window of the car and only removed by the owner.

But in South Florida they say, to hell with you, federal government, we'll put that manure enable anywhere we want. And automation of all companies, a publicly owned company, the largest retailer, or second largest retailer, is swanning the monorny law.

Now, I don't say that to put them down from a score standpoint because we vote on this mystery shopping report and we're asking for your vote, keep in mind that all the dealers in Florida like to put the monorny label someplace else. So we have to grade on the curve. We can't hold that against them. In any rate, as I say, it was in the Globe Department.

There was a dealer addendum attached to the windshield. Again, this is SOP almost everywhere, especially Florida. That's a stuck on the windshield. I usually say next to the bernoony label, but they take the bernoony label off and hide it in the glove compartment and leave their addendum label on. And again, I hate to say it, standard outfading procedure in Florida. It added a three-year appearance package on this addendum label for $699 bucks. three-year dent protection for $699, window tent for $2.99 for window tent.

Mercedes Benz of Coconut Creek's asking price was $52,172. He unlocked Marcos, unlocked the car, sent me out while he made a copy of my license. He wanted me to drive around the lot to see the GLB model and then had me drive both So I was in the GLA.

He wanted me to drive the GLB to see how they both drove differently. We headed towards where they were parked, but a flatbed was in the way. He had me turn around and wanted to show me how the self-button or the self-park button works. We tried several times, but it did cooperate. That's every car dealer's nightmare. Every car salesman's nightmare, certainly when you're trying to demonstrate something and doesn't work. There was an embarrassing moment. The self-parking didn't work in this Mercedes.

I likely won't use it, I said. Let me just back in because that's how I usually park, trying to make him feel. Marcos feel a little better. We then headed out for the test drive. He went over all the features of the car, emphasized how safe they are. We headed back, and he suggested we try to see the GLB model again,

and also try the self-park. Okay, my heart's starting to palpitate now. He had to go to super slow, but the feature didn't work again. He had two different model new Mercedes. Oh, God, Marcos has got to be sick inside. But I didn't like the box the way the GLB looked, and I wasn't in the mood to do another test drive. He said, well, it sounds like you're set with this one.

Am I correct? Yes, I confirmed. I let him know I really am not looking to waste anyone's time. I'm not buying it over MSRP, plain and simple. In fact, I like to be right around, if not below MSRP, out the door. See, Agent Lightning is pushing. It'll be a little aggressive here, which he should be. Marco said he thinks that sounds reasonable.

That's good news. And we'll see what he can do. We headed over to his desk. He pulled me up in their system and the computer. If you've ever been to any AutoNation store, you'll be in our system. He explained, and sure enough, he found my name easily. He then excused himself to go get some numbers

and returned a few minutes later with a worksheet. The top line was NSRP, $50,000, $475. Then came a $500 discount, whoopee. But then they added, here we go, $6.99 for the appearance package, $699 for dint protection. Next came a $199 electronic filing fee. That's a junk fee. And here's another junk fee, $995.

They call this one a services, dealer services fee. My real price was $52,567, $2,092,000 over MSRP. Out the door, I was over $56,000. What do you think, he asked? I was helping for more than a 500 of a discount and less fees, I replied, but what would make me by today as being under MSRP out the door?

She's pushing again. He wrote that number down at the bottom of the sheet and then said he would be back. Here he goes back to the manager. A few months later, he returned with his sales manager, Natalie. Now, isn't it pleasant, this is the third or fourth week of the road that I've commented that we've had female salespeople

females, almost every shopping report now has a female involved somewhere. And here we have Natalie, it's a Mercedes Automation dealership, Natalie a female manager. She asked, what's bringing you all the way down here from North Palm Beach, meaning Fort Lauderdale or Coconut Creek? My husband works down here, besides we're not exactly big fans of our local dealership. I explained. She laughed.

She knows Sada and Gamora, and she's in Sada Aguomara. so she knows what I'm talking about and said she understands would love to earn my business today, but notice these are their cars that move fast and don't see any way to get me below MSRP out the door. She says, will your husband be available soon? I said he will not step foot in a dealership until he has a final number from me, I asserted. She thought for a minute and wrote on the paper that she can definitely get me $53,000. out the door on a piece of paper. She then mentioned she probably still has a little wiggle room

for when I come back to make the purchase. So there's the incentive, you know. She's letting the customer out on the street. She knows the customer is going to be shopping and comparing the price. So it gets a little something to think about before she buys somewhere else so she'll come back. That's standard operating procedure.

I thank Natalie and I thank Marcos and they waited for me to get their car, and then I left. So there you have the shopping report, and this is a Mercedes-field electric car dealership in South Florida, owned by Auto Nation. They're a publicly held company, and largest retailer in the country, or second largest. You can vote, ladies and gentlemen,

and we love hearing from you. That text number is 772-497-653. That's 772-4976530. And remember, we don't hold the things against them that we would do with this for a normal retailer. If you went into Costco or someplace and they start charging you prep fees and this insurance, that insurance, and a lot of junk fees, you'd give them a bad grade. Card dealers, they all do it. So if they all do it, and we gig everybody for everything they do wrong,

then we have no list of dealers that we could recommend. And part of our mystery shopping report is to provide for you, and this is Earl on Cars.com, if you want to go to a car dealership that is better than the others. Now, we're not saying they're good or great, we're saying they're better. So we have a list of better dealers and a list of worse dealers. you stay away from the worst dealers the only way you get to be a worst dealer

on this is an F and you really got to do something illegal, outrageous to get on the F. So if they're bad, give them a D but don't fail them on this. They're really, really bad. Or if you want to go into the worst dealers

and just mess with them and drive the car all over, use up their gas, eat up all their bagels and their snacks, and then go somewhere else to buy the car. Yeah, just harass them, yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea. That's always fun.

Okay, let's see here. I've got T-Cash says, F, forget auto parking, park that German junk yourself, and run away from the fake fees. Sounds like a World War II vet. I don't think he likes Mercedes. Bob from Maryland says,

it would have been a bee, but I didn't get the dent protection, and the bee had two dents and turned into an F. Oops. Who's that? That was Bob from Maryland. Bob, I love your sense of humor.

Crazy Bob. I love it. Okay, here we go. Johnny Z. Fradley says, instead of having a working self-park mode, it had a go-park-it-your-self mode. 53K, I'll give a C. Tom Steckle says,

I love his YouTubers. B minus. Go park at yourself. Go park at yourself, mode. What was that great, E minus? Tom Steckle says B minus. Oh, B minus. Luxury car dealers should not play games.

However, addendum label stated that the additional items were not required to be purchased. No tie-in sale. Without dealer fees, it would be an A. Mark Smith says, I'll give the dealership a C-plus. Brian said Latko I think they should get a C Joseph Kelleher D grading on the curve

and see if any other's coming in check here's Anne Marie says C sounds like an average dealer here in Sodom and Gomorrah we are the Wild

Wild West for me I think they could get rid of those fees. You know, it's a Mercedes. Put the price where it should be. Put the fees in the price where they're supposed to be and advertise an honest price. Otherwise, I give it a C. I think it's pretty average. What are you saying that? This is a tough one. And there's a lot of fees here. And I don't like fees. You know me. I don't like fees. But the ladies good job and

well I'm going to give them a D Wow That's tough, that's tough You know when Nancy and I were Coming to the studio I said I was I thought maybe it'd be I changed my mind

See We're comparing luxury guard dealers So luxury guard dealers Generally I do a better job in terms of treating the customer Transparency and honesty It's also an AutoNation store, publicly owned, very, very large 200-some car dealers, dealerships around the country. Because they're publicly owned, they are under the spotlight, and they are watching their stock price.

And if you get indicted, it doesn't help your stock price. So everybody in Honor Nation is motivated to have a good image. You've got to have an honest, transparent image. And I don't think this store deserves to be. I'm going to give them a C-minus. And I changed my mind considerably listening to all the other scores and thinking about it was AutoNation and it was Mercedes. And in Sodom and Gamora is still a C-minus.

And they need to get there. You know, if a top executive from Auto Nation hears about this, I think they would call the stores. And it would be something silly. The Monroney label's got to be on the window. I mean, they could get a, they could get, and if they go after one automation store, they're going to go after all the automation stores.

Can you imagine what would happen? If the Federal Trade Commission is listening, if you want to really get somebody's attention, go after automation, because you can hit all their stores, find them all. It's one company. Absolutely. And Senator Monroney,

He worked really hard, real hard to put that into place and to make it, there's a penalty, a $1,000 fine for not, you know, for the Monroeian label not being displayed. Ladies and gentlemen, we are out of time. We certainly enjoyed our time with you. you are an extremely fantastic part of the show and we thank you for that. Have a great weekend and you can see us right back here at 8 o'clock next weekend.