Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.04.2022 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Mercedes-Benz of North Palm Beach

Episode Date: June 4, 2022

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits a local Mercedes-Benz dealer to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2022 Mercedes Benz GLS-450 SUV. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

Good morning. I'm Earl Stewart. I welcome you to Earl Stewart on Cars, a live talk show all about how to buy, lease, maintain, or repair your car without being ripped off by a car dealer. With me in the studio is Nancy Stewart, my wife, co-host, and a strong consumer advocate, especially for our female 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 CyberSiber. 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. Well, we got a rainy, stormy, early morning, year Saturday at South Florida. I don't know where you're watching or where you're listening, but it's pretty wet out there. That's usually I hear a lot of exaggeration by how these storms are going to be, but this is really a wet one, and it's kind of exciting driving to the studio. They turned the elevators off, so I guess no one would get stuck in the elevator, but we're only on the second floor, for some of us, some of us go to the third floor. But here we are, and another exciting day, Saturday, I should say,

we're all pumped up, we're ready to tell you. you how you can avoid being ripped off by your local car dealers. We're getting into an atmosphere and a culture today where people are becoming more and more sensitive about buying cars, mainly because it was always a chore. It was always a challenge. And, of course, as you know, car prices are off the chart. Whether you want to buy a new, whether you want to buy use, luxury cars, lower price cars, everything costs way more.

production's off supply is way down demand is way up and here we are it's a sellers feeding frenzy car dealers are just getting fat and happy and the auto manufacturers think about it you can sell fewer cars and make more money you don't have to work as hard because you don't have as much product to sell but there seems to be no limit on the price car dealers are charging thousands literally thousands of dollars. $10,000. We've mystery shop dealers

that are charging $10,000 over a sticker. So what should you do? Well, you should listen to this show for as long as you can. We're on for two hours and kind of check in and out if you can't stay with us for the full two hours, which we understand.

And you can text us. Or you can email us. Well, don't email us. We check the emails very last. You can email us, but You can text us at 772-4976530. That's our area code 772-4976530. But call us.

That's our fun way to contact us. We prioritize our telephone calls. And that telephone number, if you can write it down, that'd be cool because you probably don't want to call us right this. But if you do, call us. We prioritize. If you call on the audio phone, we call it. it. 877-960-9960, that's area code. 877-960-960. Phone rings. Well, that doesn't ring in the studio here, but Nancy Stewart, my co-host, sitting just to my left. He's got a

laptop right there in front of her, and that's a, that's where she's the call. She's your name and knows you're waiting, and we try to stop whatever we're doing and get those phone calls. 77, 960, 9960. We'd like to hear your opinion just about anything automotive. We'd like to hear what you think about the pricing situation, unprecedented. I've been a car dealer since late 1960s, if you could believe that. I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen, you know, back in the day, I mean, you know, three years ago,

if a car dealer sold the car at MSRP, he had a party. I mean, it was a high five, bonus to salesman. Hey, did you hear what happened? We sold Mrs. Jones a car and sticker. Full pop. Full pop, that's right. Full pop. Now, slam dunk, some of us call it.

Today, you can't buy one that low priced. You got me. You can't find a car as low as MSRP. The dealers are marking it up. It's become the new, how much over MSRP do we sell it? They look at the MSRP, say, do we sell it for 3,000, 5,000, 10,000? I mean, there are cases of these cars. going for 20, 30,000 over MSRP.

A lot of money out there in the economy. Cardinals got tired of saying, how low can we go? Exactly. Now it's how high can we fly. And the money that is being made has made the automobile dealership so desirable.

Now this could be a good thing. So desirable, there are a lot of people saying, I want a car dealership. I mean, what I'm doing now, nobody can make as much money than if they have a car dealership. And so they're buying up car dealerships. There are people, you know, the fat cats, the guys... They're richer than card dealers.

Yeah, the billionaires. And the large auto groups are buying up. And the price paid for car dealerships is off the chart. It's twice as much as it was a couple of years ago. I mean, think about it. I mean, the value in terms of return on investment. So it's dangerous out there, folks. My advice to you is don't buy a car.

Yes, I'm a car dealer. Yes, I do have a car dealership and I am in that business, but I've got my consumer hat on now. In fact, I found my hat. Who found it? My vigilante head. Credit. Thank you.

And that's a real knee slapper. And I'm going to be a consumer advocate, not a car dealer right now. I'm going to tell you don't buy a car. Use car or a new car. If you wait, you can buy the car for a lot less. If you have to buy a car, then listen to the rest of the show, and we will give you all the tricks of the trade. Being a car dealer, I've been there.

I started out doing it the wrong way. Bait and Switch advertising, deceptive sales practices. I mean, you know, get them in, get them in a car, deliver the car, make as much money as you can. On the financing, make your money. Again, on the accessories, you add to the car, throw those hidden fees in there. Dealers call them dealer fees when they're talking to each other.

Whether we're talking to you, they call them everything they can think of, so you don't know what it really is a hidden fee, electronic filing fee, dealer prep fee, administrative fee, tag agency fee. They've got a million names for hidden profit that they pop on after the advertised price. after the quoted price. So listen, if you have to buy a car, if you don't have to buy a car, relax, do something else, go to a movie and wait a few months and check the prices. There's some good movies out there right now.

There's some good movies out there, exactly. So. Let's see Dr. Strange. We have some other ways to reach us and ways that you can find us on cyberspace. That's Facebook.com forward slash Earl on Cars. Facebook.com forward slash earlund cars and of course

YouTube. YouTube.com forward slash Erlon Cars and our blog. Guess what that is? www. www.

www.orgoncars.com. Erlancars.com. On earlongcars.com by the way, you don't even have to be here and watch us. You can go back. We have all our shows archive. We have podcasts

of the highlights of our shows. We'll be showing a podcast a little later. that is particularly appropriate. But you can see, on YouTube, you can see advice on just about anything. We take snippets of shows where customer calls or text us or however they contact the show. And an issue comes up and the issue gets answered by Rick Carney or Nancy Stewart, Sue Stewart or myself. We answer the question. And what's a particularly interesting question, a particularly good answer,

we snip it out, put it on a video on YouTube, and there's just a huge library out there. There's not a day that goes by we don't get people thanking us for finding solutions to their automotive problems on our YouTube or the regular podcast or whatever. So here we are. I'm going to go around the table here. I always get carried away about buying cars. I forget about repairing and maintaining cars, which is especially today when I tell you, you don't buy a car. Well, if you don't buy a car, you better maintain it. And if you're going to maintain it or repair it to keep it, you've got to know what you're doing.

Rick Kearney, sitting to my right, can answer all those questions. You can't throw a curveball, a fastball, a spitball. You can't get it by Rick. He will knock it out of the park. Ask him what your problem is, diagnose it, tell you about how much it's going to cost, where you should take it, or can you do it yourself. Well, if you can describe it to him, that'd be great. Even better if you can find an audio clip, or if you have an audio clip already, or make one, or a video clip of the problem.

There's nothing like seeing and hearing to allow a good diagnostician to give you the right answer. So Rick Kearney, certified master diagnostic technician, this guy can solve your problems. Don't take it into the car dealer. Don't take it into the independent repair place. Don't go to pep boys or Firestone or Sears or wherever else they go. You get to your car fix, Goodyear. Don't go there. Call Rick first and text him.

YouTube.com. If you go to YouTube.com for Slash rolling cars, Rick is monitoring that right now. And so you will be, he'll know about it before I know about it. And he'll wave at me and I'll say, hey, Rick, what is it? Then he will read your name and your post and answer your. your question. So, Rick Kearney. And then next to Rick is Stu Stewart. He's my son, general manager of Earl Stewart Toyota. That's where, that's the dealership that we've had since 1975. And so we're hands on. That's the reason we can give you better advice

because we're out there in the real word, we're old selling cars, we're burying cars and maintaining cars, and we know what the competition's doing. I mean, even if we didn't do this show, we want to know what the competition is doing. And we, really know what they're doing because, mainly, our mystery shopping report. Stu is the guy that engineers that. He selects the mystery shopper. He designates the target. He tells the mystery shopper what we're looking for, you know, depending.

I mean, sometimes we're looking for, well, whether they're going to add hidden fees, whether they're going to have crazy addendums, whether they're going to tell you about a, you know, recall. We haven't talked about recalls a long time. Can I buy a used car with a dangerous recall from a dealer? And he won't even mention it to me. We found that answer many times. So we'll go to Rick, and then we'll go to Stu. And then, of course, Nancy Stewart, she's my co-ho. She helped me start this show almost 20 years ago when we're only half an hour on a little radio station called Sea View. And we have boomed and blossomed into what we are today. Two hours and we've got a really good following. I've got a very great rating out there

and we have people all over the country and the world listening to Erlund Cars. So I'll turn the mic over to Nancy Stewart and she'll tell you about a very special offer, very special and no strings attached offer for you ladies. She is a female advocate, the best when it comes to buying a car. And so if you'll call the show and you haven't called the show before, she's got a doozy of her surprise nancy good morning everyone and welcome thank you for tuning in to earl steward on cars and may i remind you as earl did when he opened uh have has things changed they have changed rapidly with respect to buying leasing maintaining your vehicle uh in the past three years the world is upside down so buyer beware and uh in the automotive

of news to add to that on page 12 weak fines do little to deter bad behavior crime and punishment doesn't always stay top in mind in a complex industry but perhaps it should

I'm sure that you can probably use your imagination and know with the rest of the article reads anyway buyer beware ladies this morning as always I have $50 $50 for the first two new lady callers. And did you consider before you went into the dealership or even began to shop for your car?

Did you consider your lifestyle, driving habits, financial situation, narrowing down the search, it certainly helps and it gives you the edge when you walk into the dealership because you're well informed. So $50 for the first two new lady callers this morning? Give me a call at 877960. And for all you others, you can text us at 772-497-6530. Don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. We're going to go straight to the phones where Howard's been holding. Good morning, Howard.

Good morning, Nancy, and everybody. All are fine after the weather that we just had. I'm sure we're going to have other bad weather but we have to just keep an upper lip and live with it. I think I could stump Rick

on this service. Rick, you ready? Absolutely. Okay. What service is not performed anymore and the service writer will never tell you about you used to be performed let's say 15 years ago

it's not a carburetor it has done to do with carburetors that it's still on the car today you know what service that is oh I could probably name about 50 but there's EGR cleaning the positive

crankcase valve you got it no the PCB valve it is you just hit the second one positive crankcase ventilation valve never checked and you hit the nail on the head but why

Well, because they've changed the technology on those valves now, and they don't carbon up like these do. Excuse me. Basically, what these valves did is all the gases that would build up in the crank case of the engine, these valves would allow that gas to be very slowly released back into the intake system, so the vapors from the oil and any fuel vapors that would get past the rings would then be sent back into the engine to be burned, through the air intake system. But PCV valves now have evolved to the point which they don't have the little moving ball in it anymore.

It's simply a Venturi effect. And it used to be they were susceptible to carbon buildup and oil fouling and they would close up. Well, they've changed the design enough now and they've designed the system to where it actually works the way it's supposed to work and they don't even need to be serviced anymore. The gases flow through, they go right burned into the engine, and it's finally a system that works.

It's amazing. It's there for the life of the car. Absolutely, yep. Okay. One other service should be performed, never performed, at least every 20,000 miles. Because this service was not performed, because I didn't do it, I had a problem I was going to the Poconos

and Nancy knows where the Poconos are I do I'm in New York now and I've taken a trip to the Poconos and Yeah, that's where the triangle is And anyway I couldn't open my trunk

I grabbed the latch I pressed on it didn't open I try to press at the beginning where at first could grab it pushed it up didn't happen so I drove to the Poconos and fortunately my son-in-law has a place there and he's very knowledgeable and what he did he stuck his finger all the way to the end of

the latch and was able to get it up open the hood and then what he had to do is WD40 sprayed it you know and then he said put lithium grease on it and it'll never happen again. Yep. So that's that's what I did and so why why don't service writers say to tell people we have to check the latches and the hood latch and the hinges, the door hinges and everything. It's never done. Am I correct? Well, it's generally that's more of a northern thing. South Florida, you know, the environment down here is very different. So a lot of the things that northern cars experience issues with, we don't have those same issues. Once you lubricate a latch in South Florida, unless you live right near the ocean where you're getting that constant abuse of

salt air spray, they really don't have too many issues. It's almost non-existent for us to replace latches for doors or for the hood or trunk. What about that little spring? The little spring that's in the latched. Does that ever have to be replaced? Very rarely. Okay. Okay, so I live in the bluffs right near the ocean, so that's why it probably affected me and I only drive up to New York in May. So the weather does it do with me, but it's because I live next to the ocean, you're saying that I have this problem. Is that correct? Yeah, cars that live right near the salt water, that That salt air is very, very aggressively corrosive on the cars,

and it seeps into different places, and it can wreak havoc. Anyone that lives near the ocean, like Mr. Stewart lives pretty close to salt water, I always recommend keep your car in a garage where it's protected away from that salt air. What I do when I wash down my car, I spray the brakes. I give it a nice shot of water right in the brakes. because I know a friend of mine never did that and he had a big problem. Yep. And there's nothing to do about it.

Just keep on top of the situation. Absolutely, Howard. You're sharing a lot of knowledge with us Northerners and sometimes we forget the environment we're in. Thank you so much for calling Earl Stewart on Cars. We love hearing from you. Have a wonderful safe weekend. You too.

Bye. We're going to go to Phil. and Phil is calling us from Jupiter. He, too, is a regular. Good morning, Phil. Good morning. I'm glad you all made it in with your Tesla this morning. Oh, thank you.

Does that drive good and bad weather? Yeah, it performs as good as a combustion engine car. I don't have any problems with it at all. Okay, what I wanted to ask you is, I got a 2017 Prius, and this is probably a Rick question. when I when it's cold and I push the start button and have my foot in a break sometimes I'll hear a little squeal noise and then it'll go away and then it might not do it for a couple days and then I'll do it again

Rick would you have any think what this may be well Stu says you have a mouse no squeal sorry I just do squeal noise Let's see, 2017, so you do not have the electric parking brake, what you might actually be hearing is the electric motor for the steering wheel lock. If you're hearing it right inside near the steering column, if it sounds like it's coming from the dash in that area, it may be if your steering wheel has gotten in the lock position, when you park a car, if you turn your wheel, it'll lock the wheel. if it's up against the lock and kind of tight, get a little tension on it, when the electric motor releases that steering wheel lock, it may make a little bit of noise. You know, Phil, this is Earl.

One thing you might do to save yourself a trip is take your smartphone, put it on a record, record that noise, send it to Rick Kearney or wherever you want to have the car repaired, and they can diagnose it on the phone. It's so cool now. we have that ability now to capture the exact noise instead of have to describe it. Describing a noise a lot is lost in the translation. Oh, you mean call in and not even go down there, but call in? Yeah, well, you can just call the service department and say,

I have a problem with my car, I have a noise. I'd like to send an audio clip if you let your technician listen to it, and it's something serious. I'd like to bring it in. If it's nothing to worry about, then it'll save me a trip. That's a fantastic idea. Yeah, I didn't even think you all did anything like that. That's a great idea.

And video also, sometimes you have things that you're looking at. You know, we human beings aren't always really good at describing, and people that you're describing it do aren't good at interpreting. So when two people are talking to each other, you'd be surprised. The misdiagnosis we get, but if you see it or you hear it, 99% of the time you get an accurate diagnosis. Well, I guarantee you, it could be every day it happens, but the minute I've come into a dealer, it won't do it.

It's just so freaky the way that happens. Well, Senator Rick, Rick can give his email address, and you could email it to him. Oh, okay. What is his email? Rick K-R-I-C-K-K at E-S-T-T-O-D-O-O-T-O-T-O-T-O-T-O-T-O-T-O-K-O-K-K. Yeah. Okay.

All right, well, listen, I really appreciate that. I never thought of doing anything like that. Oh, you're welcome, Phil. We're living in the 21st century technology is our fingertips, making it a lot easier for you. Thank you so much for the call. Okay, thank you. Have a great week, and we're going to go to Tony.

who's calling from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Tony. Tony, we got you out there? Okay, while we're holding for Tony, I'm going to remind everyone that you can subscribe to Earl Stewart on Cars' podcast using any of the following podcast apps from your iPhone or your Android.

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher Radio, and SoundCloud. app. Take advantage of that also. Our number again is 877-960-99-60. You can text us 7-7-2-497-6-5-30. Don't forget, ladies. Give us a call. Say hi. Win yourself $50. First two new lady callers? $50. Take advantage. We're going to back to, we're going to go back to the recovering car dealer. When Howard was on the phone, I thought of something I've mentioned often on the show, and that is

the low maintenance requirements of today's vehicles. I mean, we're headed almost to a zero maintenance level when we hit electric vehicles and autonomous electric vehicles in the future. But a lot of us, you know, my age and

people that grew up with normal cars, I mean, you know, where you had the carburetors and you had all the things that had to be watched and taken care of. The maintenance was very high, and the items that you had to fix.

You heard Rick earlier in the show if you were tuned in talk about the PCV valve. Well, you don't have to touch it anymore. Used to be, it was a regular maintenance item. Now, if you haven't read your owner's manual, and that applies to virtually everybody listening, including me, I don't

read owners manual, but you should read your owner's manual when it comes to maintenance and repair. I'm not finished my train of thought because I think We have a caller, and Nancy will introduce him. Yes, I will. Hi, John. John's calling us from Poem City.

Good morning. Good morning. Thank you guys for venturing out in this rough weather today. We're so happy that you're here to educate us. Thank you. I have some questions for Rick. We already started the hurricane season, and for an automobile in Florida, especially, that's kept outside,

not in the garage, not in a carport. Probably a carport is not recommended, especially if it's a metal car, upward and a metal can deteriorate and go on the car. But for Rick, I want to ask him a question. It's recommended if the car is outdoors and a hurricane is forecast, what about setting the emergency break? Is that a good idea or not? No, it can't hurt.

Okay. What about a second thing is to take a waterproof, the cover on the outside of it is a waste, but open up the hood and taking a waterproof cover. and cover the entire engine area, would that be a good suggestion also? I don't see where it'd even be necessary. Pretty much everything under the hood is waterproofed as it needs to be for anything except for if you were actually driving and went into deep water. Yeah, the top of us waterproof the bottom.

Right. Unless you actually had water come up so deep into the car that it was literally up to dashboard level, And at that point, putting anything over top of that engine is not going to help it. So if you're in a flood situation like that, there's really nothing you're going to do except to park the car on the highest point of ground you can. In other words, today's ignition system is completely waterproof that you don't have to worry about covering anything on it. Oh, yeah, they're completely sealed up. Okay, if there are any other suggestions that you could say offhand or help people that have their car,

outdoors? Yes. Other than afterwards, waxing it. You have to have waxed on it because even though you're not on the ocean, the hurricane winds have salt automatically in it. But can you suggest anything else to protect the car? Yeah, the absolute number one thing, all those cans of gasoline that you fill up for your generator and then you wind up suddenly not needing them, unless you have made absolutely certain that those cans have been stored in a protected, well-ventilated area that there's no chance of contamination, don't pour it in your gas tank. If you think those fuel cans might have gotten contaminated by water or something else, don't put it in your

engine. Because you pour that in your car and you can wind up with the cost of thousands of getting that situation fixed if, say, one of those cans has got a bunch of water in it. So when you fill up those fuel cans, if you don't use it, use it for your lawnmower or something like that. But if it gets contaminated, don't put it in your car. Very good suggestion. For a minute, can I take out time out to mention the Stewart family's favorite automobiles, other than the Tesla, which is current? on Monday was a show

it's on Monday Fox business cars we love Nancy Stewart Stewart should sit down for this one what did they feature people who looked

all over the country for a 65 Plymouth Baracuda I know I knew it was covered for their dad because their dad's in car business and it's a car he used to own

and it was a very interesting I even got educated I didn't know the barracuda had a velvet interior in it when it was new it must have been an option and then the second thing is

Pearl's 57 Pontiac which is his first brand new car Very rare automobile That was on there In April It was two of them for sale With Bonneville, convertible With fuel injection

And it was only 30 of them made So I just want to mention a little nostalgia Oh boy We feel warm and fussy Thank you so much, John You feel as fuzzy as that velvet All right guys Thank you again for coming out today

Have a great weekend. Stay safe. Our phone number here is 877. You're a real comedian's too. Did you have velvet in yours? Of course you did. Probably. 877-960-9960, or you can text us at 772-497-1930. And please, any questions, anything at all. Rick, Rick has plenty up there on his PC.

Well, we've got one anyways from Darwin to Norio. says, good morning. I'm shopping for a minivan after my wife got into an accident and totaled her car. Been shopping around Georgia, where I'm from, and other states,

but all of them are asking from $5,000 markup. I just need some help. Well, if you heard my introduction, my live introduction, I said, don't buy a car today. Don't buy a car in this market. I think he can probably do better

than the $5,000 markup, you can let your fingers do your walking for you on a keyboard, smartphone, and just get online and start looking around. You're going to have to really nail the person down. If you order the car, if you can wait to order the car, you can get a better price. If the car is in stock, that's really going to be a battle to get them down. But even at today's market, one beauty that you have is be able to shop a lot of the car is far many more dealers of that make.

And, you know, how many do you want to shop? If you want to shop a Toyota dealers, there's, there's 1,300 Toyota dealers. You could literally shop 1,300 Toyota Toyota. If you did it online, you could probably do it in a couple days. So you have the luxury of being able to go out and get the lowest price. True car is a good source because they give you a bell curve of the actual transaction prices on cars. But take your time instead of 10,000, maybe I'll buy it for $6,000. You're still going to get hosed in today's market. That's my answer. Do we have any

phone calls? We do not. Let me continue my train of thought here just quickly on this maintenance thing. My point being early caller Howard about the fact that PCV valves and they don't have to be maintained or checked anymore know your owner's manual let if you don't read anything else in your owner's manual and I don't I mean I'm pretty you know I know you don't either find the required

maintenance look at the required maintenance that your manufacturer of your automobile said should be done and that's all you want to do you'll be amazed at how little it is the amount of maintenance on a new car today for the first three years is almost negligible

and so I mean I talking a few hundred dollars maybe so car dealers can't live on that so when you go into a car dealership or you go into an independent mechanic they need to make money and today's cars don't afford them that opportunity so they make up stuff like they might even tell you to have your PCV valve service and you don't need to have your PCV valve or maybe your transmission fluid changed or maybe a flush they come up with some of very creative things that they sell you that you don't need. If it's not on your owner's manual, you'll recommend a list, don't pay for it.

Great information, Rick. The matter of fact, Kirk can West Buy God, Virginia. He says, in the future, as we move to EVs, electric vehicles, relatively maintenance-free, how does the dealership stay viable? If you assume dealerships get 70% plus of their income stream comes from the service department, how does the change to stay profitable? And he finishes off with YAA. Well, YAA, that's right. They're going to rent out their service departments for parties and events, like weddings.

The truth of the matter, in fact, I was interviewed by CNBC a week ago. And that was really the focus of the article or the piece that they're going to do is what's the future of the retail automobile dealership. And simply speaking, the future is very nil. I mean, I'm a car dealer, or a family dealership, my sons are in the business, my wife, and there are even grandchildren out there. But the fact of the matter is, the grandchildren won't be in the car business, because there will not be retail automobile dealerships as we know them today.

Likely, and I know the dealers hate me for saying this, likely manufacturers will be going direct selling just like Tesla, does, like Elon Musk. They hated Elon Musk. The manufacturers don't like him. The dealers don't like him. The only people that love him are his buyers, his owners. And he's making them an incredible success of a whole new concept, not just in electric cars, but in the way they're retail.

So the future for automobile dealers is very bleak. Some interesting information that I learned this weekend or this week. Five years ago, the world experienced peaked internal combustion. engines. As far as the production of them, the sales of them, it was the highest it ever was five years ago. And electric vehicles have increased in percentage. In a sense, it's still a small percentage. But if you look at the graph, it's pretty striking. You see gas engine peak about five years ago. And then on the bar graph, you see the electric vehicle is getting bigger and bigger. And this year, we're attending another milestone. And that is when the world's fleet of vehicles will peak with gas cars.

so slowly because right now the sales the fleet lags sales so as cars get destroyed and all that right now the world has seen an increasing amount of electric cars and a decreasing amount of gas cars in existence interesting and that trend will continue in perpetuity until there's none Rick just mentioned to me before the show started that in San Francisco today you can get an autonomous taxi without a driver and you can you can fly into San Francisco and I guess you get on your smartphone and you hit the right app and a driverless vehicle pulls up you hop in the back seat and you say take me to a CVS or wherever you want to go and the charging information that you shared with us this morning it's just all totally amazing take me to the nearest bar all right

the world is changing in san francisco they've been used to for years seeing um autonomous cars because it's right there near silicon valley so they test all the they're all testing them in San Francisco, but they've always had a driver on hand in case something that went wrong, and now this is going to be like, this is going to. I mean, think all you heavy drinkers out there in San Francisco, I think this is Nirvana. Well, you could have done it with a driver with taxi, too.

You can be drunk and get to get in the cab, get drunker, and get back in the cab and come home safely. Are they allowed to throw up in the cab? I don't know. Any throwing up? In Chicago, there are signs for, there's a vomit fee in the taxi cab. There are blind jump feeds all over the place. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6-530

and take advantage of your anonymous feedback.com. And we're going to go to Marty, who's holding. He calls us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. Hi, good morning. I have a question for either rural or stool. on my wife's on the CRV, which is a

lease, it has a buyout price at the end of the lease. And on every monthly statement it comes, it has a buyout, which of course includes how much we still owe monthly plus the buyout. But it doesn't say anything

like if you want to buy it, that you'd have to go to the dealer. So I don't understand if all leases are written that way, why would anybody go to the dealer? and then get charged all these excess fees if you can go directly to the finance company. Because the finance company is inclusion with the dealer and they want to send the car, they want to send the customers back to the dealer. But some leasing companies want to do it and other leasing companies don't want to do it.

And it's a really mixed bag out there. You're in control if you want to be firm about what you want to do. want to do. There's a, there's a couple of lawyers in South Florida. I've given their names and numbers out a couple of times. You might have to hire a lawyer to be able to deal directly with the leasing company and not have the added fees slipped in there because the laws are not being enforced. The lease contract is a, in 1976 there was a, I think, truth in leasing. I can't remember the name of it, but there is a law on the books in leasing. that says the option price must be the price no more than the option price than when you exercise that option.

There cannot be anything added to that. Well, it's a law, but you try to get that honored in Florida and most other places. The dealers are so used to getting a way of screwing you on this thing that you can't do it. But that's in case of Toyota, you can deal directly with Toyota leasing, at least southeast Toyota leasing. Whereas if you go through, I'm going to guess, Honda leasing, Honda will send you to a Honda dealer, and the Honda dealer will add, as you said, Marty, as much as they want, to the purchase option price, which is a violation of the law. Then you've got to call the lawyer.

Yeah. Well, on the statement, they just tell you that you send a check directly to the American Honda finance. So that's what I'm wondering, if you're sending it right to them, unless they give you a different price, when you're getting ready to do it. I'm not I still got two years left. I don't think American Honda would dare do that. They're too big a target. The dealers are small, relatively speaking,

and nobody gets excited about suing Charlie's Buick or something of a small dealership. But American Honda, lawyers would love to get a good class action suit against them. And if they were taking advantage of their leasing cup, customers. First of all, there'd be a huge number of Honda's lease, and Honda's is worth billions of dollars, and the lawyers would go out to them. So the big guys usually are pretty careful, publicly traded companies, especially, but the dealers, they get away with it. All right, well, I've got two years to worry about it. We'll see if...

Hey, Marty. Let us know, as you get closer to the end of the lease and you start getting correspondence, from the leasing, from Honda, I guess it's a ton of American credit. Let us know what the officers are saying. Let's see if they look for things if they offer to let you buy it directly from them or if they instruct you to go to the dealer. I'd be really curious to see what Honda does in this situation. All right. Well, I'll be, I listen every week. So in April up to 2024, I'll let you. You'll be there. Thanks, morning. Thanks so much morning. We love hearing from you. Thank you. Same to you. Ladies, $50 for the first two new

lady callers. I'll take advantage of that during our radio show this morning. Everyone needs an extra $50. $50 for the first two new lady callers 877-960. We're going to go to our first lady caller. Her name is Tiffany, and she's calling from Lake Worth. Welcome, Tiffany. Good morning. Good morning. You've just won yourself $50. Thank you. Thank you for calling Earl Stewart on cars. How can we help you? I had a question.

My father just got into an accident in my car. And I'm curious how they go about making the decision to whether they total the car out or whether they fix it. Also, if they do pay me out, how do they decide how much they're going to pay? Do they pay the book value? or how much I owe. And then the other, the other thing was that the airbags didn't go off in the car.

So now I'm kind of nervous if they do fix it. Yeah, that's a concern. And, Tiffany, the first part of your question, the rule of thumb is seven. It's not a rule of thumb. I think it's the actual rule. 75%. If the car is damaged by 75%, of its replacement value, then it's a total.

It varies by state, too. Yeah. So it varies from state to states to inform me, which I'm no surprise. There's a lot of things that your dad ought to be worried about. Sometimes they don't total a car when it should be, and having the car totaled when it's almost totaled is preferable because that way they're required to buy you a car, and reimburse you to replace that car and the value.

Right now, the cost is very high to replace a car, but that's the insurance company's problem, not yours. If they don't total the car, then that means that you're going to have a car that's repaired extensively, and when you have a car that's repaired extensively, that negatively affects its ultimate resale value. So if it's close to a total, if you feel, that your dad's car should be totaled, it was really quacked, then get a second or third opinion to be sure that you can't get a qualified estimators

say that car should be total, and then insist on that with your insurance company, even if you have to hire an attorney. Here's a good point. They said, as far as I looked it up in Florida, it's 80% of the actual cash value of the vehicle immediately before the accident. Oh, 80%. well thanks too fantastic so uh so get to get uh get another opinion if you're worried if it if you know it's not a total and that's not a problem but if you think it should be total

they say no that's when you want to start shopping around and 80 percent stew just corrected me it's uh i thought it was 75 yeah i guess it varies from state to state to state of yeah yeah and it's it's it's a real concern you know for your doubt i i understand and uh you know the long-term depreciation, safety, so many things to take into consideration. It's dotting the eyes and costing the teeth. I have an interesting thought. I want to earlier what you think about this. Right now, use car values are inflated at crazy high levels. You know, the cost of repairs have not caught up with the, you know, the cost of price. So if you have a actual cash value immediately before the accident at a incredibly, you know, it was 3,000 more than it was a year,

I think I know where you're going. Yeah, you're 80%. They're not going to total the car. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if they're going to follow that logic or if they're going to say, well, use car prices are inflated. We're not going to do 80% of actual cash value. I don't know. That's a very good point.

You've got to, the answer is either way, you've got to be careful and get a second or third opinion. That second opinion is really key, especially in the environment that we're living in right now. And with inventory shortages, with everything, if the car has to be. repaired and I know which way I know what direction I would go in but that's me so Tiffany um is there any other questions I mean that was it I just I am nervous I am sure nervous if you do fix it like with the airbag issue yeah yeah that's a big concern well they are required to replace the airbag for a complete repair so yes if the airbag went off which sounds like it did then they have to put a new airbag, which adds to the, hugely to the repair cost

and pushes it toward the total. You know, a lot of times in an accident when the airbag goes off is probably what, most of the cost of the repair is just putting the airbag back in. It can be because of the number of their bags. Tiffany, does you say that the airbags all went off? No, they didn't go off. That's what I thought you said. They did not go off.

Well, that probably leads me to believe. it's not going to be total if the airbag didn't go off. You know, as I said, Tiffany, there's a lot of if-ins and butts here that need to be figured out in Key, that second opinion. Boy, I'd go for it. And I will because I have a small car and I was hit by an 18-wheeler. Oh, my gosh. It's my car, but my dad was driving it.

Uh-huh. Oh, wow. Is everybody okay? Yeah, yeah, everybody's fine. He spun out a few times, and there's, there's damage to the driver's side all up, you know, the front to the back but the airbag

should have definitely come out. Yeah, something's off there. Mm-hmm. Definitely. Well, Tiffany, please stay in touch with us. Let us know how it all went and congratulations again for your winning $50 and thank you so much

for calling Earl Stewart on cars. Spread the word. Let the ladies know that we're building a platform here. It's really important. Absolutely. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Stay in touch. 877. The same to you. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Okay.

Okay, kids. Where are we going? Yeah, I got some texts. Sure. All right. Anne-Marie has our kickoff text for the day. She says, good morning. It appears that South Florida will likely be hit by a tropical storm. I think that's happening right now. that could dump up to a foot of rain before it exits the East Coast

this might be a good time to consider renting an episode of the best of Earl on cars so you don't have to drive in the rain. Nope. Emery, as you have already surmised, we ventured out.

Were you out there for the international sunrise? I don't know. Did you see us out there? Were you out there? Of course. I was. Okay. Earl was on the beach.

I was in the backyard. All right. Was there a sun? No. Only you. Anyway, cars. Emery goes on. She has a serious topic, because cars and floodwaters are not a good combination.

And I got a text alert during the show that we have a flood warning. Cars sink, please turn around, don't drown. But there are those who insist on driving in the flooded areas. That prompts the following questions. These are great questions. I've read. Your dealership has a collision center body shop. What's the worst repairable flood damage in a vehicle that you've ever encountered?

and the second question is the one I liked. Which models are most frequently brought in after floods? Is it corollos that don't think the puddle was that deep, or maybe four runners that just had to test the waters? Please stay safe. And before Rick answers, because he deals with these, I'm going to say the smaller, this lower the cars to the ground,

the more likely it's going to have a problem. But the question was, what's the most expensive. I would say the most expensive vehicle was the most expensive because once you blow an engine, you're talking about replacing them. That's the danger, right? the whole engine goes. For sure.

But she says more than ones are brought in most frequently. Oh, most frequent. I rescued my brother, Josh, during a hurricane about 20 years ago. I was driving a forerunner. He was in a camry, and his car was in a...

Well, the ones that sit lower to the ground are the ones that go first, right? Well, there's actually two types of flood cars. One is, the car was sitting there, and the water came up to it. Accumulated. And it filled the car up from just from... That happened to Josh.

Yeah, that's what happened to Josh. the water came up into the car. If the water, the rule of thumb that I've heard from adjusters in the past was that if the water level inside the car and you'll actually see like grass marks where you can see where the high

water was. It's the high water line. If it got to the bottom of the dashboard, they pretty much decided at that point you're almost totaled. Because you've got so much water in the car that you've gotten the

electronics and the computer systems, you're pretty much done. It's like dropping your phone in the ocean. And then a word of advice to people that are dealing with their insurance companies, they bought a car and it has flood, they think they might have flood damage. Sometimes you don't know about the flood damage for months or maybe a year. I mean, there's subtle damages to a car from water that don't materialize. You could buy the car. Today it's been on a flood.

It drives like a million bucks for two months. And then suddenly. issues start popping up. Now the other type of flood car is the one where they drove into the water thinking I can make it through that or say they were smart and they were doing the proper weight which this app it happened to a friend of mine he was stuck he had only one way to get to his house he went into the water nice and super slow like you're supposed to and some guy in a big four by four went the other direction at high speed and swamped him huge wave of water swamped my buddy's car, and the water got sucked into the engine and it blew up the engine.

So this happens up. And actually, it is against the law to travel any more than idle speed through water in any vehicle. So even these guys with the big trucks, slow down. He's probably rolling cold. I've got a great tip just from my experience driving into the studio this morning. Slow down. There's a tip for all you drivers during heavy rains and floods. find a fool on the road that's running through the puddles and uh and they you can see

sometimes you can't see the puddle i mean you know particularly at night yeah they help you so so if you get behind a fool uh you can see he hits the puddle and you go over to the right and he knocks a lot of the way yeah knocks the water out of the way it knocks the water yeah yeah i followed the kia for about five miles in and it made it saved me a lot of time he was running interference for you he was running interference so find a fool that likes to run through deep water and follow and go the other way. There you go. That's great tip.

Mama me. I like them. Okay, folks, we're going to wrap this up. As I ventured into the state of Florida, I learned very quickly to put my, park my car in, or I should say, on high ground. Yep. 877960, or you can text us at 772-497-30. The ladies are lined up, and I am just bubbling.

here. Thank you so much, ladies. We're going to go to Julie first, and Nicole, please hold on. Julie, welcome. Welcome back. Hi, thank you. I had a question that's car related, and that is towing cars. I had what I thought was my dead battery, and I called up a towing company, and I told them that, you know, I had the electric brake on the corolla, and they, to bring a dolly, and they I said, oh, I can use sliders so you don't just have to put your car in neutral. So I said, all right. Well, when they came there, I said, can you just kind of start the car? And it started right up, you know, when you dump started it.

So I said, oh, I'll just drive to the dealership because I was like 20 miles away. I was up in Juneau. And he said, oh, you can't do that because it's your alternator. And I said, how do you know it's my alternator versus my battery? and he shows me this thing, like he'd use that machine with the grips on it. He said, it was a six now with the 14. And I said, well, what would happen if I drove it? He said, it would probably die a few miles from here.

Now, it was strange to me because I'd had a jumpstarted that morning, and I drove 20 miles on that one charge. So anyway, I get to the dealership, and I tell them what the tow truck driver thought, that it was the alternator. And they test things. They say, oh, your alternator's fine. It's the battery. And in the meantime, I had to pay $100 to have it towed.

So how could you tell if it's one versus the other? I bet that made you feel good, Julie. There's a simple way. Once the engine is started and it's running, look on the dash, and you'll see a little red, if this red indicator that's in the shape of a battery is lit up, then that means the alternator is not charging. If the alternator is charging proper,

that battery light will be off. If all those indicator lights are off and your car is running, then 99.9% chance, all it is the battery, drive to the dealership or your local mechanic or auto parts store, and have them test the battery,

and they'll double-check the alt-nator. Most of the new testers will do a very quick check on it, but the tow truck driver didn't want to lose his commission on the toe. Julie, what was the name of the tow truck company? Can you tell us? I can't tell you yet because I haven't gotten the receipt from them. They couldn't give me a receipt at the time. Yeah.

But I was up in the Juneau area. It wasn't AAA or something like that. No, I went through AAA and the funny thing is I go through AAA and the first person I get a, let's say it was ABC towing. I get a call from this other company and I said, who are you? I thought it was the other company, though, like, they declined it, and I'm thinking that's weird. Oh, I don't know if I told you that, you know, I told him we needed a dolly, and he goes, oh, I can use sliders instead. It doesn't be put in neutral. Have you ever heard of sliders?

Yeah. Because it never got to that point since I was able to, you know, he was able to start the car. Yeah, it's, it's, the sliders were actually, they'll jack up the car and put the little pieces under the wheels, but it's really not the best thing. do and the the really the best option is to use uh those little wheels just so they can get it up onto a flatbed tow truck uh any more flatbed tow trucks are the way that any car needs to be towed if it's got to go any distance but once the engine starts and you've got electrical power then your parking brake turns off anyways so you're all set right i think you should get your hundred bucks back i'd file a complaint call the

to, you know, to call the to income me and just say, you're misinformed me, and I want my money back for the toe, yeah. Yeah, it was absolutely right. And, you know, I think that you probably, well, baffled everyone with your extreme knowledge, and you can use that to your damage by getting your money back. Nothing like knowledge. It is extremely powerful. Yeah. And one other thing, when I'd gone to get my, you know, I had to get my card. I started twice, and I will tell you, you should go to somebody who's a construction-related, because when I got it jump-starred that morning, a guy from a pool company started immediately. That afternoon, I was at my office up in Juneau, and this guy in a BMW said he'd help me, but he didn't know where his battery was, and I told him, I had family members with BMWs.

It's in the trunk, so I thought, I don't want him helping me. So then this other guy, I said, do you know how to jumpstart a car? He goes, I'll Google it. I didn't want him testing my car. I finally found a man who knew he was doing, but I said, you know, this morning they repositioned the grip. They started pouring, so I just thanked him, and that's when, you know, I had it done the next morning. And, you know, I don't personally know how to jump start a car. I can learn, and actually somebody gave me one of those machines, so I've got to charge it.

But I did feel like I was taking advantage of since he had to know it wasn't the alternator. Sure, definitely. Most definitely. Julie, a great call. I would love for you to stay in touch with us. give us a call again. Let us know how it all turned out. Like I said earlier, knowledge is power. And you had, well, you had it all in your hands and you shared it with the people that were saying they were going to help you. But indeed they weren't.

Okay. Stay dry. Bye-bye. Thanks, Julie. Have a great weekend. We're going to go to Nicole, who is our second new female caller. Good morning, Nicole. Thank you for waiting. Hi, good morning. My question is. you is what does it mean when you have a rebuilt title on your car? It basically means that the car was totaled by way of a flood, an accident, or whatever. It was purchased from a salvage yard or a salvage company and somebody repaired the car enough that they could get a new title issued on the car and bear in mind it might have been repaired back to near

perfection but it might also have only been repaired just enough to get the car back on the road okay so would you consider that safe to buy and or drive only if you have it inspected by a very highly qualified mechanic who can really go over it and make sure everything is in excellent condition and Nicole even if it is inspected carefully even if it is was put back together again very well is still going to have that handicap of having that rebuilt title. And that seriously affects the resale value. Normally, when you see that a car has been in a flood or it's been totaled,

it's been rebuilt, or any of these drastic things that appear on the title, the buyer is scared away. So if you buy the car and it reflects the huge reduction in cost, then you're breaking even. But if you pay for the cars, if it didn't have the rebuilt title, even though it might be a great car, you're going to have that handicap when you resell it or trade it in. Be sure that you're getting the compensation for that handicapped title. Nicole, I want to congratulate you. You did win yourself $50 this morning, and I also want to let you know that, you know, I don't know what this situation with this car you're talking about.

whether it's something you're going to save money. But in the long run, a depreciation, boy, it comes back and, well, bite you. So definitely get that car checked out. Okay, great. Thank you. You're quite welcome. Yes, give us your information, and I'll get that checkout to you. Okay, great. Have a great weekend.

877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. We're going to go to John, who's been holding in Stewart. Good morning, John. Yes. I have a question. I called like two or three weeks ago. And I got this Mercedes-Benz, and I talked to Rick. And Mercedes-Benz, 230C, and it has all kinds of problems.

So I changed the coils and spark plugs, everything. I took it back, and they all fouled out. So I took it, this guy's really good. he put in two camshaft adjusters put in new plugs I drove it home next day I go it around the block and I was just jumping and jerking and everything else I called him back and so he said that this is what he did he did a diagnostic check the light was on to the camshaft adjustment codes the fouled out plugs he reset the plugs or he put in new plugs and cam magnet.

The vehicle still has a cam phasing issue. And he referred me to the Mercedes-Denz dealership. So I don't know what to do because the car's in perfect condition as far as like aesthetically, you know, cosmetically. The paint job's great. I put in new tires. I put in new struts. I did all this stuff.

But I don't, I need some advice. I don't know. I can't sell it because it's jumping and jerking and stuff. And I, what would you guys do? I don't, I don't know. It's 2003. And unfortunately, Mercedes is one, European cars really not my forte. I just, I've never really learned much about them.

My first step, I would go online and look for Mercedes car owner forums here in the local area, are local to you and find because there's there's forums for like uh fan clubs for every model of car i mean even for you goes nowadays and there will be a group out there and i'm sure a group local to you that absolutely love their mercedes to an incredible extent and i guarantee at least one of them has got a mechanic in their back pocket that they know that no that no knows these things inside and out. And that's where I would go to get my recommendation for a Mercedes mechanic, whether independent or a dealership if need be. But that's the direction I would follow is I would find Mercedes owners and see who they take their cars

to and you find, you find their recommendation and I guarantee you're going to get probably the top-notch guy. Okay, so you'd try to put some more money in because I thought about, I did this to my Toyota Corolla, I blew up the engine, and so I got one from those online things and put it in, and it worked really good, but I was talking about that, and the guy at the auto part, or the car place, he said, I wouldn't do that because you get in all times of problems and stuff, so that'd be about $3,000 to do that. I don't want to put that much money in the car. Right. It just, until I had it diagnosed and knew what was going on with the car, I would look at it very carefully simply because the cost of replacing, trying to get a different car right now, there's just almost nothing available out there

unless you're going to spend a fortune on it. Yeah, and I don't want to do that. And the guy did, he did that, and he said that it needs this, took me his can crash phasing thing, phasing thing, but he said the tool for him to do that cost $1,000. And he said he doesn't, because he only works on two of these cars at all, you know, in his whole time. Right.

So he said he was sitting by when I understood that, and I googled it, and the guy was doing the same thing that he talked about. And when he got done with the tool, he put it in this nice box, his chase and everything, and put it aside. So that's what I'll do then, Rick. I'll get on one of those auto clubs or something for Mercedes fans. So that's it, I guess. Okay, well, thanks so much, John.

Stay in touch. Let us know how it all turned out for you. Have a great weekend. Okay, you guys as well. Hey, 77-960-9960, and you can text us at 772-497-3530, and we're going to go out to Atlanta where Justin is holding. Good morning, Justin. Good morning. Welcome.

How are you, folks? It's a good day. I actually met you guys in 2010 at JMC. And Stu helped me out in 21 with a four-runner off-road premium. How you doing, Justin? Fantastic. Hey, man, I'm the Clyde Meg guy. Uh-huh.

I got a question for Rick, though, about KDSS. I was wondering. It's been about a year now. I usually don't get a warranty, especially on Twitter. it's because they're so reliable. But I was wondering what he saw long-term history with KDSS suspension. I'm loving it on the road and off-road. I'm actually up in Nashville, North Carolina right now.

I'll be back in July. But I just wanted to get Rick's opinion on it because I was doing some research, and I figured there's nobody that knows better than him. Well, it's interesting because they put that system onto a lot of the forerunners, and I think even a few sequoias and maybe some land cruisers. KDSS is basically it's a computer controlled suspension leveling

system. It's a fancy suspension system on the forerunners. Truthfully, I think we actually repaired one. Out of all of them that we've ever seen, I think we had one forerner that had an issue with the KDSS system. From that, I would have to say

they've been pretty bulletproof. They've been good systems. So pretty much I like everything else to learn it makes, and I'm not going to worry about it. I was just sitting here listening. I told Stu I listen every morning, and I usually do, but I was sitting here watching it this morning. I was like, you know what? I'm going to ask Rick Wall here. Sure, yeah.

Now I don't even worry about it. So thanks a lot. I appreciate you. No problem. See the effect you have on people? Thanks for your dedication. Justin feels so much better now. Thank you.

Thanks, Justin. You're welcome. Have a great weekend. We are, I think we're going to. take care of some YouTube's and some texts.

The lines are. Oh, good. Clear. I have a visual aid. Negan texted us. I'm sorry, Rick. He's my friend now.

Negan says, here I was thinking of the energy crisis in the 1970s. I was very young, seven years old. I remember the President Carter bumper stickers.

What does Earl remember from those times? And are we heading there again? Gas jumped 60 cents in Arizona. I'll tell you what I remember remember about the 70s. I remember a

time magazine cover and there was a picture of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and my dad pointing at Jimmy Carter saying he's bad and Gerald Ford he's good. He was trying to turn me into a Republican when I was like seven years old. I do remember

the gas lines. One of the things I do remember is we had the monsters at the time. I had a monster dealership and the rotary engine was a phenomenon. It was exciting to talk about and it looked like it was really going to

make a big hit and the problem with the rotary engine other than the sale which failed after a few maybe 20,000 miles and you had to replace the engine as if that wasn't

enough, the fuel mileage was terrible so here we're trying to sell mazes, a rotary engine mazes and we're doing the gas crisis and the gasoline lines and I can remember trying to get a reasonable amount of fuel economy on a Mazda driving on 9.95, the way we measured fuel economy back in the dark ages,

we would take a bottle of gas, and we would run the gas into the carburetor, or in the case of a rotary engine, no carburetor, but wherever we ran it, and I would get on 95, try to drive the steady pace so that I could say the Mazda, it really got 18 miles to gallon when it really got 8 miles to gallon. And the other thing I can remember is writing a letter, open letter, like the current version of my blog, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, blasting them for getting all upset about gas mileage.

And gas mileage really wasn't important. I mean, you know. You're trying to spin it. Yeah, you're making a big deal about the fact these cars only get 12 miles. a gallon. What's wrong with that? I mean, that's on American. That's right. American cars are supposed to be

good gas miles. Yeah, those are my memories of the 70s. I'll tell you, here's my memory of 70s and it's like yesterday. Tough times, real tough times. Raising three daughters. I'll tell you what, standing in line, gas prices, everything

that you can remember about the 70s. There were some great times, but you know, right now we're in a quandary, I guess. Yes, you might call it a crazy, crazy time, but it helps to think back and, you know, it just helps to settle. What's past is prologue. Yes, exactly. Absolutely.

As a matter of fact, Donovan has just come in, he came in with a question a few minutes ago, says, now that we're just a few cents away from $5 gasoline, although I think now it's a few cents over $5 in some places. Yes. Have you seen a drop in the value of large vehicles to get poor mileage? No. Or seen more interest in the smaller or hybrid vehicles? Yes. Absolutely. Prices are not coming down and there is more interest in hybrid.

Hybrid. Big problem, nobody can get them. Everybody wants a hybrid. But those big SUVs are still selling like crazy. I think there is a little, there's been some discussion about it. And what's Sue saying, we're not experiencing it in our dealers. But there is a worrisome decrease of minuscule decrease in demand for heavy gas cozzlers. And so far it isn't material.

That's a good supply. Yeah. It's a supply can't keep up. But it's definitely a lower demand, but it's the supply is so small that you can't see it. This is a text from Bob. Rick, this is for you. Speaking of fuel, I have a 2008 Prius. once in a while, every few weeks

the fuel gauge will be on one bar and for people don't have a Prius, the fuel gauge is a series of little LED light bars, so one bar means you're almost out. So he says the fuel gauge will be on one bar when we first start the car, but there's more gas in the car. For example, last time this happened, I went

to the gas station and it only took four gallons. I've tried turning the car off and on back on, rebooting the car, smart, when it happens but it doesn't fix it. Any ideas on this? And this is, he says it's periodic. Every weeks. Yep. Yep. You're not going to like it. You need a new fuel tank. Tank? Tank. Wow. We've seen on that second-gen Prius, which is 2004 to 2009 body

style. Yeah. That was the one that had the infamous bladder in the tank system. Oh yeah. The tank was a heavy-duty ABS plastic on the outside and then there's a flexible bladder inside which was designed to help reduce fuel vaporization. It didn't let the gas evaporate inside because it would the bladder would shrink down to leave less airspace as you use the fuel out from the tank. Unfortunately that particular system was designed as a single piece unit. It's not serviceable. You cannot replace any portion of the bladder is an expanding to fully fail. And it's it's the system inside with the bladder itself and the sensors inside that include your fuel level sensor

and in order to fix that you've got to replace the entire can you get the used tank you can but the odds are it may be having the same issue what's the cost of the rear as they get older they get much more expensive uh i i couldn't even give you a guess on the price of the tank itself right now because i haven't done one in quite a while um labor-wise you're going to be looking at about $450 to $500. So you're talking $1,000 probably. Well, actually, that tank price might be as much as $1,000 to $2,000 right now. So your answer is forget about it.

Yeah, I would simply drive it. Keep track your mileage. And when you trade it in, don't tell the dealer about it. Yeah. Except, yeah, Bob, tell me what your last, please text me your last name, Bob. He wouldn't tell you about it if you were selling it to you. Exactly. But we would.

So, Bob, let me know your, text me your last name. So when you buy the car, I know what your trade is. I'm just kidding. Yeah, you might just, or put it in an order now for another car because it's going to take a while if you want to replace it. Well, that's a classic case if you don't fix something on, I started to say when you're driving an older car. In this case here, your older cars worth a ton of money, but all cars are worth a ton of money. So, but yeah, drive it and then. Very inconvenient now.

You have to fill up every couple of hours. Any time that you see that tank, if it suddenly says, oh, you've only got one bar, fill it up. Go ahead and stop and fill it up. Just be on the safe side. I have no idea that something like that would be that expensive. And I know you guessed, but your guess is far better than anybody else's. So you're talking about $3,000 on an old car. You're just crazy to spend that kind of money.

And it's not, unless you forget to put fuel in at that point, it's not a breakdown issue. It's not something that will leave you stranded. You just have to be more mindful of your fuel usage and keep your fuel topped off. Well, you talk about prices going up. How about the fuel tank? Oh, it's outrageous some of the things. I mean, it's just, like you suggested, keep an eye on the tank. All right.

Let's go to D in West Palm Beach. He sent us a text here. He says, Hurricane Irene in 1999 flooded her parking area with water rising about two-thirds the height of our Nissan's tires entering the interior. By the way, it was Hurricane Irene in 1999 when I rescued Josh in the flood. Is that right? Yes. entering the interior.

Both our car, and the neighbor's car, were total due to damage electronics. They wouldn't start. His question is, are newer cars, and he specifies Toyota's designed with higher placement of electronics? And he seems to recall the Nissan's electrical components were under the Nissan's passenger seat.

So that's his question. And that's from D in West Palm Beach. A lot of components are much higher under the dash now. And as a matter of fact, One of the common changes I've seen on Toyota's lately is the engine computer is now located out under the hood and is completely weatherproofed. However, there are other electrical components such as the airbag center sensor, which is the airbag computer, is generally very low in the car, and certain other items, the electronic components are still low in the car. so unfortunately flood issues can still be a very real danger to your car if you think the area that we may you know like especially today park your car somewhere as high as you can get it

get the highest point of land that you can get to and park your car up somewhere like that and again folks if you see standing water non ever strike very very slow goes slow and easy and if you don't know for sure how deep it is stay out of it yeah I remember we had an FRS came into the shop this is years ago, and I think you worked on it. Maybe it was Bobby, and somebody drove it into a puddle during one of these days like this, and it shut down. It was an engine lock or hydrolock, and he tried to claim that it didn't happen that way, but we had the computer record.

We saw that the temperature of the engine went from like 250 to 70 degrees in one second, so he drove it into the water. You know, with all the information that we put out about flood, flooding, you know, You know, how many people did we see this morning? I'm talking about Arona this morning on the road. I mean, zooming through this deep, deep water. It's just... They're not listeners of the show that I can tell you that much.

That's why we need to continue the show. And it's really, it's just so easy. I mean, how costly will it be? We talked about the fuel tank. I mean, there's a way to get around all of this. Put your thinking cap on when you get on the road. Oh, as a matter of fact, Donovan, you've got an interesting line of information here, says a third-party tank, which is an outside producer, an aftermarket part, third-party tank for that Prius is about $950, and a Toyota factory tank is $1,800 online. That'll tell you something, folks.

OEM parts, unless you talk about crash parts, which are very important to be OEM, but if you're talking about non-crash parts, If you can find a good aftermarket, OEM, they get all the money. They charge the dealer too much, and the dealer charges you too much. Take care of that car. And a little side note here, a lot of times on parts, you can find the part made by the same manufacturer. It's the identical part that the factory gets to sell to Toyota to put on that car. You can find it at an outside source for half to two-thirds to price. Yeah. One day there'll be a huge investigation of this whole auto parts thing. There's so much going on behind the scenes. It just makes me crazy when I think about it. So I imagine you're building bumpers and you're in Taiwan. And Ford is buying your bumpers and you're putting a stamp on them. And I'm not saying they do this. I'm saying it as an example. And they call it a Ford. This is a Ford bumper.

and then Ford marks it up a huge amount of money. It sells the same bumper to somebody else, and they don't call it a Ford bumper, but it's the exact same bumper. And you can buy it for half the price. So you've got to know what you're doing, but you can get a huge bargain by looking at an aftermarket part. A similar situation. An air conditioning compressor from Toyota made by Nippendenzo

might cost $1,500, and you can get the identical AC compressor made by Nip and Denzo from say WorldPack or another source for about $400. Amazing. I mean, and it's the identical part. They are made right from the same factory. Both of them, one might have come off the line, one right after the other. One went on a truck to Toyota, the other one went on a truck to the other distributor.

Do you think Toyota dealers are buying those aftermarket compressors? Contensler? We actually quite often will buy from an outside source. Let me finish my thought, and marking them up to the same price that Toyota has a suggested retail. I guarantee some places do that. Absolutely. I mean, you can't win. If you're a consumer and you're buying parts or you're buying cars, you're going to a poker game.

And if you look around the table and you don't know who the sucker is, that means you're the sucker. So when you're dealing with automotive parts or automotives, you got to be careful. They screw you on the parts. They screw you on the parts. cars and uh it's uh it's a dangerous game yeah boy okay where are we i got text we got text from bob he says good morning when i purchased my 2017 you're gonna like this one dad when i purchased my 2017 sienna it came with toy guard paint protection oh how long does that last and can it be reapplied um in the old days toy guard i used to think tour guard was a little bottle because

they came with a little can of paint sealer in the um like addition extra paint in the glove compartment. They don't do that anymore. Listen, they put on some kind of sealant on the paint that's supposed to protect against salt and harsh climate. They warranty against premature weathering and stuff like that for, I think, three years. So that would be the official answer. We don't believe in it. We don't think it's really anything that it doesn't. There's some other parts to our guard. There's some car rental and roadside assistance that have some value but the least valuable the least part of toy guard is that paint sealant and the fabric sealant and they spray something on there and they really do but how do you know because i trust

i trust them to be honest but i don't i mean i don't think you could put two cars side by side and say the toy guard one fared better you know in time the deal the deal of cost on toy guard is about $250 the they sell it to you for $700 and I don't know what Southeast Toyota costs them. If you know a Toyota service manager that you could talk to man to man or woman to woman or whatever the case may be, ask the Toyota service manager how many warranty claims have ever been paid that he knows of in his career by Toyota on a Toyo Guard warning? Now, I think I've seen other, like there's other like fabric sealer things where I've seen things pay. paid, but on the exterior paint, I don't think so.

I've never. No, I don't think it's Toy Guard. I think there's like some other product. I don't, I don't think there's ever been a claim paid on Toyota Guard. Yeah. So that's my opinion. Let's pursue that and see if we can just try and get that data. Mark has never seen one.

I'm saying maybe, maybe some of our friends up in Toyota could help us get data. Okay, we can do that. Another investigation. Yeah. A future of investigations. Got time for another text? Yeah. 877-960. We've got plenty of time.

Okay. And go ahead, Stu. All right, this is from a concerned grandma. She says, your professional opinion is sincerely appreciated. I gave my 2003 Toyota forerunner to my daughter who lives in Kissimmee, Florida, after my husband passed. My granddaughter will be driving the Toyota to her high school and then to college next spring. I need a reliable and highly recommended technician and business in the Kissimme area. And folks out of the state, that's near Orlando, and the Kissimmee area to die.

issues that must need to be repaired to the forerunner. My daughter also has a Toyota Tundra. Therefore, please recommend the best in the area. Also, if you have a Villagelanti recommendation in the Kissimmee area, please provide ASAP. Thank you, Concerned Grandma. On the Vigilani thing, we don't have anybody in the Orlando or Kissimmee area, but we have several down here in South Florida. It's not that far.

So if you go to Earlsvigilantes.com and look up, I'm sure, you know, a phone call, they'd be willing to help. I know they're shaman at the built. Chris certified. ASC certified in as many different specialties as you can. You can have a guy like Rick. Rick Kearney is certified in all ASC. I can never remember what ASC stands for. The Society for Automotive Service Excellence. Okay. Automotive service excellent. Rick Kearney is qualified in all the different areas.

There's got to be half a dozen. I don't know what they got, but transmissions, air conditioning, blah, blah, blah. There's nine of them right now for automobiles. So find an ASC certified technician in Kissimme that is qualified in as many areas as possible, especially the area of your concern if you're bringing your car in. Yeah, and unfortunately, we don't personally know, you know, we're not that far away, but I don't know of any facility, a dealership or independent place that I personally could, you know, I could endorse.

I don't know anybody up there. I don't think anybody in here does either. We have a text from Dog Walker, Dave, for Rick. says jumping cars used to have to be performed in a specific sequence. Is it still the case with newer cars? Technically, yes, you should connect the positive sides first and then the negative sides, because the negative cables are less likely to throw a spark,

and batteries still can produce hydrogen gas from them, and a little spark can start a fire. Rick, Rick, you're a mine of information. Jonathan, how long would take the queue up there? that video, that YouTube. The reason I'm thinking about Rick, because he's answering so many questions today, and he's really been an extremely important part of the show.

He always is. He's on YouTube on YouTube. And you can find Rick with all sorts of answers to technical questions. I ran across one. Actually, someone emailed me, thank me in an email for showing her something very important. that she wasn't aware of. And we're going to share you that YouTube clip,

and you can go to YouTube.com. What do we go? Earl and Cars. Earl and Cars. All Rick stuff's there. Also, Earl Stewart, Toyota. I get comments. I'm not kidding.

Every single week, because I get notified every time somebody comments on a video. And on several of Rick's videos, weekly, I get comments thanking him for explaining how to unlock a steering wheel is the most common one, squealing brakes. It's crazy.

They have millions of views now. Well, this is our, A little unusual, and Jonathan's going to run that now. What an amazing journey with Rick, the irreplaceable Rick. Here we go. Now, I've got a little tip as long as we're talking about the traffic light situation. Now, have you ever noticed that when you're coming up to a traffic light, the painted white lines in between the lanes change from a dotted line, a broken line,

to a solid line, a certain distance from the traffic light. but are you also aware that if you are traveling at the posted speed limit when your car reaches the beginning of that solid line if the light turns yellow before you reach that solid line they paint those lines a certain distance that you should be able to safely stop your car so if you have not reached that point where the line turns solid and the traffic light turns yellow that's your indication that you should stop and not not continue through that light. If the light turns yellow after you've already reached that solid line, you should go ahead and look carefully and continue on through with caution. When you see that solid line, that's your indication that you should stop and not continue through that light. You know, I never knew that.

Rick's voice, by the way, it sounds like you hadn't even gone through puberty then. Like, how much younger were you? Honestly. You don't sound like that today. That one was years ago. but let me tell you i said here's something i never knew and now you know you can learn all sorts of cool stuff from that so i i just yeah yeah i always thought it meant you can't change lanes that close that that's what i thought that's also the law is you're not supposed to cross a solid line

right yeah but that little indicator that hey that's where you should be looking at i remember this by the way you know slow down you know i remember that when you went on i remember that show and it that that's it's there to save lives We're there in the other studio. All right. I got some anonymous feedback if you guys want it. This is really good. This is kind of feedback that we like.

It says, hey, Earl Stewart, I was told about this video, and he's referring to a video. He doesn't have a video here, but I was told about this video from my GSM, and that's a general sales manager. So this is a salesperson who is writing this. Hey, Earl Stewart told him about this video from my GSM. I wanted to thank you for what kind words you have said about my work. I think it's awesome what you do out there and checking up on the live market we live in today. Also, thank you again from Ronald Colon at Mike Maruni Chevrolet.

So when I saw this, I looked up the mystery shop. We didn't give him that great a mystery shop, but we gave Ronald a great. He was fantastic and polite and professional, and we described him as such. And the word got back to him from his boss, and he appreciates that. So, hey, we're happy to do it.

Like we said, when we do the mystery shop report, we're not out there to get every, we're out there just to report. And when a salesperson does a great job, even if the dealership doesn't, we make sure to say so. And you salesmen are listening now, remember that. Just do a really honest, good job every time, and we'll write you up. We'll give your recommendation. We've got tons of listeners, and we recommend you. So let's do it again. If you need a Chevy, a Chevrolet, go to Mike Maroonie Chevrooney Chevrolet, ask for Ronald Colon, and he will take care you.

Yeah, there you go. What's the location over there? Where is that dealership? I don't remember. That used to be, Locachia Boulevard. It used to be Roger Dean Chevrolet. That's right. Oh, okay.

All right. All right. There we go. Thanks, Ronald. All right. Here's a question about ordering a Toyota. It says, if I order a Toyota with a specific model, color, and options in mind, is Toyota building that specific car for me, or I'm merely getting the next car that meets

those specifications as part of your regular allocation? Correct. They're not building that car specially for you. It's a hard, hard, hard job to sort through all the cars that are allocated to us, matching them to the right color, putting the right equipment on it, swapping it with another dealer. And I remember we're swapping vans and not cars. Well, let's be sure to say that you get the exact car you ordered. But the process is missing.

It doesn't have Billy Brown's name on it. But there are enough orders, hopefully. Now, just there's a crazy, you know, that's the way my mind works. supposing they didn't have the particular car that Billy Brown ordered, I guess they would build it for them. I've never heard if they will build a car with these options, if they have the capability. There's limits to it, so it has to be provided and offered by Toyota. So there might be a car, they might take the Toyota brochure and say, I want this green car, this model with this package, and you just can't get it in the southeast. But they're okay in the southeast.

Yeah, as long as it's shown in a brochure. you should be able to order. I don't need to be sure online. We're an independent distributorship in the southeast. And for the manufacturer, the car that you order, you're going to get it. It's going to take a while. And maybe it doesn't have your name on it, but that combination exists. And sooner or later, it will reach you.

And today, you're looking six months. Yeah. And we have some other complicated options to try to, if there's something is really hard to get. But everything's taking a long time. We're in a long wait. Six months, eight months. possibly a year. Yeah, probably longer than that.

How does Toyota Guard Platinum get on the Moroni labels? That's another great, this is anonymous feedback. And we were just talking about that Southeast Toyota is an independent distributor for Toyota. When we, as a Toyota dealership, interact with Toyota, we don't interact with Toyota Motors North America. We interact with Southeast Toyota. They're effectively the manufacturer for us. And so they have a deal with Toyota, the manufacturer, Toyota Motors North America, and they can print the distributor options on the Monroney label.

It's indicated as such. On the far left, it shows standard equipment. In the middle of the Monroean label, it shows the manufacturer's options. On the far right, it shows distributor installed options, and that's where you'll find. To the entry and I, it's just like you're buying it directly from Toyota. And Southeast Toyota began as a little bitty place back in the late 50s, early 60s, and there were a bunch of gas stations selling Toyotas. nobody heard of Toyota. They called it Toya Pet back then. And Jim Moran bought a distributorship

for $100,000. And now his estate is worth multi, multi-billions of dollars. He actually caused Toyota to be what they are in the USA today. He taught them how to merchandise. He told them what kind of cars to build. He is revered to this day, and he's been dead for 20 years. He's revered by Toyota. And if he wants to have his label on the Moroni label, they'll do whatever Southeast Toyota wants. They sell over 20% of the Toyota's in America. Exactly. They're amazing.

What a man. What a legend. They definitely outpace Southeast Toyota when you look at the number of, like the share of Toyota vehicles in the market. It's much because it's higher significantly, not significantly, but it's higher. The dealers are typically more profitable, even though. they marked a car sale another $1,000 on the average than the other areas of the country. And we have some more Southeast Toyota questions on anonymous feedback. Oh, boy.

Does the Toyota dealer decide whether or not to put on Toyota Care Platinum? Yes, and we've covered this a lot. Salespeople probably don't even know this, but they tell you that it's on every Toyota. You have to get it, but you don't. Good luck trying not to get it now because dealership is going to put whatever they want on the car and you don't have a whole lot of bargaining power. But in normal times, if you put up a fire. It's hugely profitable to Southeast Toyota.

It's hugely profitable to the dealer. It's hugely profitable to the salesman, the sales managers. The way they construct that, the cost of that are holdbacks and kickbacks and other percentages and quotas, bonuses, so that if you want to maximize your profit, you use Toya Guard. and even though we don't do it because we don't think

it's a value to the customer and so we don't put it on our cars oftentimes we sold cars with Toyota Guard because we have to get the car from another dealer and they come most dealers put all their Toyota Guard on all their cars

we don't do it because it's not a good value for our customers that's right we experimented with it once a couple of years ago yeah we sold it at our cost we figured

because a lot of people were so brainwashed and to think Toyo Guard was a good thing, people would come in and say, well, does it have Toyo Guard? And we said, let's be able to say yes to that. We'll put Toyo Guard on the, they make Southeast Toida happy. They left this for three or four months. And we put on every car, we sold it at what we paid for it, about $250. $259.

Huh? $259. $259 instead of $6.99. And we didn't like it, though. It just didn't make sense. and we went back and now we don't do it anymore. We got tired of explaining it to our longer time

customers like, what are you doing? You've been railing at this for you. You're doing. You lied to me. You lied. Well, we tried something. Great text this morning and YouTube. Are we? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us to go to the

mystery shopping report. And of course, Agent Lightning did a fabulous job as she always does. And you're an important part of this show and we would love to hear from you please vote on the mystery

shopping report. The mystery shopping report is Mercedes Benz of North Palm Beach and you're going to love it. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Mercedes Benz of North Palm Beach is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. They

own they own the Mercedes Benz dealership in West Palm Beach also and I think they own one in Del Rey, or is that owned by AutoNation? I don't think they own one in Del Rey. But they own both Mercedes dealerships in Palm Beach County then, or two of the three in Palm Beach County.

They come out of New Jersey area, I think. And when they open the one in North Palm Beach, they didn't have a dealer fee. They didn't have a hidden fee. And that's a six in my mind. And they were the only other dealer. I think they dropped, they started with one, and then around that time, they dropped it, and all the dealers started dropping it. They did it. And then they dropped it, and they came back and did it again. So that's what sticks in my mind. Anyway, getting into the report, I already said, yeah, we shop about every kind of car dealer during this unprecedented inventory situation, which has lasted well every year now, whether at a small mom and pop shop or publicly owned mega dealers, our investigations have been covered the same thing.

huge markups over the manufacturer's suggested retail prices, unprecedented. It hasn't been much different when we shopped luxury brand dealers in the last few months. It seems that the special treatment normally provided to luxury brand shoppers doesn't extend to pricing during a supply chain crisis. And actually, I understand that because, you know, the fat cats, you know, the guys that'll pay anything for the best, you know, I'm talking about, they don't care whether a Mercedes cost them 65,000 or 70,000. You know, you know, is he sure not sick?

Oh, 70,000, I'll write you out of check. That's what happens. All three luxury dealerships we investigated this year charged over MSRP, some higher than others. Wallace Cadillac wanted 5,000 over a sticker. Brayman BMW tried to get $6,500 tried to get. Only J.M. Lexus exhibited restraint and went just $3.99 over MSRP.

plus $59 e-filing, a junk fee, and we still don't know why they did that, but they were the best. Who cares if rich guys are getting ripped off? Well, yeah, people don't care. I mean, you know, it's all a matter of percentages, and, you know, the rich guys, they don't care, and we don't care. No one really, but it's just a rich, it's not just rich folks who buy luxury cars. Now, this reminds me that Tesla, as I said last week on the show, Tesla is a number one selling of luxury cars, seller of luxury cars in the United States. Probably the world.

And the world, I believe you're right. In the world. And so they don't mark them up over MSRP. You can order a Tesla at MSRP. Now, here's the irony. Tesla, Elon Musk, is making more money per car. than anybody. He's making, his markup is, I think it's 23%.

I think the average dealer manufacturer is making 5 or 10%. It's just... Do you think he really needs to charge a dealer fee? He's really pretty bad off. He does charge a dealer fee. He screwed me with a dealer fee. He's living in hand to mouth. I mean, I was really shocked.

I was, it's a small dealer fee. I think it was $200. $100. $100, you know. And a small dealer fee. but I couldn't believe it. You know, I'm buying this expensive Tesla plaid, and he's got a nickel and dine me with a $100 deal fee.

Why? $200. Why, $200. Whatever it was. Whatever it was. I'm a rich guy. I don't care what they do. And he hit it.

I don't care what they charge me. So who cares if rich guys are good. And the average purchase price for the new car in 2022 is $46,000. That's amazing. I didn't know that. $46,000. I thought that was the average price of a car. Period.

Lexus, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Accura, all luxury brands have offering under $50,000. So when Wall's Cadillac price gauges, it's not just the fat gas feeling it, everybody is that's true. Also, high prices on new luxury cars trickle down to high prices on used car, use luxury cars. affecting an even greater swath of customers. Finally, we keep shopping, much for you is because our listeners keep asking us to do it, and we're nothing of not responsive to our listeners. And I have to say a lot of listeners are semi-fat guests. I would say to fat guests. They're doing well. They've done well. They're retired, and they're getting three meals a day. With that said, we turn our attention

to Mercedes Benz of North Palm Beach. The last time we were there was in January of 2019. It was a different world then, and our mission was different, too. We were there to see if Mercedes-Benz of North Palm Beach would sell our shopper a used car with a defective airbag. And they did. They were willing to, and they did. This time, we're just trying to find out who can control themselves and be satisfied with MSRP. Report is if I were Agent Lightning. I arrived in morning and was promptly greeted by a young salesman named Malik, M-A-L-A-L-K.

I think it's Malik. Malik? Malik. He asked me what brought me in. I said I wasn't 100% sure, but it had to be a hatchbacker crossover with decent gas mileage. I had a GLS in mind, but I wanted to see what my salesman came up with. Malik, Malik, I'm sorry. Malik said he thought the GLS 450 was exactly what I was looking for.

and he walked me over to a model in the showroom. As he described the car and reviewed the features, I inspected the dealer supplemental price label, affixed to the windshield, a.k.a. addendum label. A list of the MSRP is $90,455, and the market availability adjusted price was $105,455. That's a lot of cabbage. 105,000

That's in Kohl's the law right there To drive to work it back A hundred five The Moranee label was on the side window And confirmed that the MSRP was 90,455 Malik was extremely nice and a professional He asked me if I watered any coffee or water

I declined said then he offered me to get the key So he could get the GLS out of the showroom For a test drive He was back in a minute with a key he handed it to another person who drove it out of the showroom you got to be careful taking these cars out of the showroom

only train professionals to do you really I mean it makes me nervous to even think about it but we got good drivers to do that he was back in a minute with a key he handed it to another person who drove it out of the showroom

funny I flashback when you say that do you get you feel the same way I'm thinking of mayhem you know not just dent in fenders but you know scratches on the sides or liable suits

people run over running over desks yeah I mean now I've driven past this dealership they have a big share of a lot of cars and inside so it looks like it's easy to get in and out yeah I know it's not always though yeah uh mail in Malik Malik made great conversation on the drive we talked about the current state of the car business even electric cars which malik thought were great but impractable for traveling and then again I reflect back on salespeople what is a great salesperson a great salesperson is a nice person a nice person a nice woman, a nice man. You know a nice person. When you're in Publix or where you're in Costco, when you meet somebody on the street, you get a warm, fuzzy feeling. It's where they look, the way they walk,

the way they talk, the way they treat you. And you folks out there, if you're a nice person, you would make a great salesperson. I, the parking... I guess I wasn't nice enough. The valet parker downtown, when Nancy and I go downtown, we use this valet parker down there. And I don't even know his name. He's such a nice guy. I'm going to ask him if he wants to sell cars. Because I love the guy. And he smiles and makes me happy.

He's an angel. I mean, it's just, and Malik is a nice person. He also said that the Mercedes availability was starting to approve a little. He said, as this continues, their prices will come down and they'll be able to do away with the market adjustments. It was just a matter of time. Okay. Malik said that the GLS was still very hard to get and that's why this marked up $15,000

over MSRP. That's so hard to... Well, it's true. It's true. It seems it's so absurd. Yeah. It's true but absurd. But truth is important and Malik was truthful.

I told him it's much better than the enabled salesman that says, look, if you don't buy this car, you see that guy coming in, he's going to buy it. it. Someone will buy it. If you don't want to buy it, I'm going to sell it. And it'll cost more tomorrow. Yeah. I like what Malik says. You know, we got a lot of orders and only a few cars. And this is $15,000 more. That's why. I told him, Mike, I'd like to see some numbers when we get back. We return and found a desk. Blake gathered my info and entered it into his computer. He suggested he could email the numbers to me because his GSM was off. General Salesman,

as the Death Man, also known as, today, and he seems to get a better number from them. Interesting to me that the manager's off. Tells me a little bit about... Well, the GSM. GSM, yeah, but... But, I mean, any manager, typically in a dealership, would give them the price, and the GSM was not there. I think he says he could... This is not unusual in a car dealership.

They have salespeople have their favorite managers. The easier manager, the nicer manager. The manager that's weaker that gives, you know, we'll fall, you know. Yeah, that's very true. We'll drop his pants. Yeah. He suggested to get to email the numbers to me because his GSM was off, but that's unusual, to email the numbers. A lot of car dealerships, they don't want you to email the numbers.

Yeah. They don't want to put it in writing. So things are looking interesting here. Malik agreed said he'd be back shortly. He returned in four minutes with a worksheet. They went for the full McGilla. 105,455,000, that was the adjusted market price, plus $2.95 and taxable junk fees, I mean, which is also a hidden fee, plus $9.95 dock fee, that's a hidden junk fee.

Mercedes-Benzhen North Palm Beach wanted $16,290 over MSRP for this 2022 GLS Mercedes-450. Malik explained that because of the rarity of this vehicle, the price was firm. I laughed and said he was so nice and so professional, but I can't imagine paying $16,000 over sticker, period. And Malik said he didn't blame me. I mean, that's empathy. Fake or otherwise, it's nice. Malik is just a nice guy. I stayed and talked to Malik for a while longer.

I asked about hybrids, and he spoke. highly of Toyotas. I told him I had, that's unusual, speaking highly of your competition, I told him I'd considered a hybrid Highlander. Mlick said he had friends, used to have friends. Right. We'll tell you you hear the rest of this. Bullick used to have friends as Southern 441 Toyota, and he could call to check their inventory. But instead, he suggested, I go around the corner, now we're not making this up, folks, and I blush when I say this, and I get nervous.

And I got nervous about typing this and I know you wouldn't want to read it. I know Stu knows that. Tell everybody how smart you are. So, but McG said, he suggested I go around the corner to Earl Stewart Toyota because he heard nothing but good things about them. He said Earl Stewart didn't have markup or dealer fees, which is true. Now, you know, I just, I hate to talk about this because first of all, I'm slapping myself on the back.

I'm telling, I'm telling the world that we don't charge. over MSRP and we don't charge hidden fees. Our Althador price is our MSRP. I feel guilty about that because that's a lot of money. And we make a lot of profit in MSRP, but we don't make thousands more than that, which is what Mercedes of Northbound Beach is doing. And here we have Malik recommending mystery shopper to Earl Stewart Toyota.

So it brings tears to my eyes. I can barely complete this mystery shopping report. Earl loves Malik. I have tears in my eyes. Malik walked me to my car under his umbrella. Under his umbrella. I told him when I did decide on a bins, Mercedes-Benz, I would certainly come back to see him, and she would.

And I would. And I think a lot of people would. And isn't it ironic? And it was not weird. It sounds made up that Stu read anonymous feedback about somebody else that talked about the fact that we're the only dealer. that does not charge hidden fees or mark up their cars over MSRB. And here we have a competitive salesperson from a mystery shopping report confirming that fact.

If I was listening to the show, I would think it was a setup, and this is really an infomercial, but it's not. You've got to believe me. It's not. It's just a real world in the way to happen. Waiting for some grades to come in. I'm inclined to give a C for Mercedes. Benz of North Palm Beach and an A for Malik for his just being an awesome human being. I do have one coming in from Bob.

Bob says F for Mercedes-Benz, Northman Beach, but you should hire Malik. That's a, I would agree with that. You got any grades coming in over there on YouTube, Rick? I've got, let's see, here. Mark Anderson originally gave him a D and then he said, Revised to a B because of Malik. Tim Gilliland. They were straightforward but exorbitant market adjustment, the C.

Over here, Kirk and West by God, Virginia, truthful salesman, but 15K ADM and junk fees A plus are recommending Earl, overall grade of C. Negan, C minus for nice, but no buy. No buy. That's what I've got so far. All right, Dog Walker, Dave, Malik gets an A, dealer gets a C, and Andrew on Facebook says, price but clearly stated it's a B all right and I think I want to give them the

highest grade we've given one Mercedes dealer what would that be you know well we don't have very many but what you're thinking I'll look it up because I was certainly I certainly would recommend Malik and I say yeah the only problems we'll probably try to hire Malik so attention you better give me like a raise because we're after him well it's not gonna be hard to do here's the current grades we only have two Mercedes dealers on the list We have Mercedes-Benz of Del Rey. It's a C-minus, and Mercedes-Benz in North Palm Beach is a C-minus currently.

That's AutoNation, by the way, in Del Rey. Okay. But currently North Palm Mercedes is on there with a C-minus, so we're going to improve it. Yeah. How much? I'd say C-plus. C-plus, okay. And I've got Brian S-Latco.

I'm going to give them a C. Mark Ryan, A for the sales representative, F for the dealership. So issued grade of C plus And let's see James Sheeman says Salesman was great Didn't give a grade but he says He liked Malik

So For me I'm going to go ahead with I'm going to say the C plus for the dealership Because they at least had enough common sense To get a guy like Malik in there Yeah Well To your statement about the rich

Not caring my question is how did the rich get rich but that answer might be for another show for the dealership i give them an f and for the salesman i give him an a plus plus maybe i should start i recommend a list for salespeople but the turnover is so great that that might not be worth the effort but we have had i i remember remember we had a deal, a long time ago, we had an extraordinary salesperson in Delray. I think it was at a Chevrolete dealership, which tells me that the salesperson you talk to is very important.

When you go into a car dealership, you're not happy with a salesperson. If the chemistry isn't there, ask for another salesperson. I know most of you won't follow that advice. People are too polite and you don't want to hurt somebody's feeling. But if you really want the best leverage you can, be sure to get a salesperson that you feel comfortable with and if that's true if you're a woman and you rather have a woman salesperson or if you happen to be a Hispanic you rather have Spanish speaking salesperson but it also goes if you feel you know you feel good about it if Gus if he makes you feel good then you're

likely to get a better yeah you less afraid to ask hard questions of someone that's not going to get smarter with it. And don't feel too bad because usually if you switch salespeople, the salesperson that you left, it happens. It goes around and comes around. And typically a dealer will split the commission with the person who started off with. So there's something there for them. So you're not really hurting anybody's family. And the dealer wants to sell the car. The manager wants to sell the car. So they'll cooperate with you to keep you there because if you imply you might not stay around. They don't care who you buy the car from as long as you're buying it there. They'll find, they'll pick out who you want. So

Pick out who you want for Zalespers. Absolutely. More great advice. Okay. Where are we? We're going to wrap it up? We got three minutes and we're sitting there with nothing to do. Okay.

Anybody got a deck of cards? I got some information. Listen, I was reading all sorts of automotive, not in automotive news, but about the automotive industry. You hear about the IHS crash tests for the Jeep's, Jeep Wranglers. No. On the offset crash test, they're flipping over again. That happened like 10 years ago. They had like a, so your favorite, your favorite vehicle, the Jeep Wrangler, Dad, is flipping over in the crash test.

Those jeeps look so good and they're so exciting. And the way they slide on the side is. I like it when they slide. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. You are a great part of the show and we enjoy your company. And a special thank you to everyone here, our staff, who came in, during this inclement, I'll call it, weather. And everyone have a safe and wonderful weekend,

and we'll be right back here Saturday morning.