Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.10.2023 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Central Florida Toyota

Episode Date: June 10, 2023

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning travels north to visit a local Toyota dealer in the Orlando to see what they have on the lot and how much over sticker they will charge for a new 2023 Toyota Crown Hybrid. 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. To purchase Earl’s book, “Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer”, go to www.earlsbook.com. This will forward to Earl’s Amazon page to complete your purchase. All proceeds from the book go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. For more information or to adopt a dog, please visit their website at www.bdrr.org. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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 as 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 self-forward a dealership. And now, on with the show.

Good morning, everybody. We're back again. Raring to go. Exciting show. I know I said that every week, but we have a new thing going on with the Dog of the Week. If you listened last week, you saw that. and the doggie, another doggie will be back this morning. We're trying

to find a home for dogs at D. Domes and Big Dog Ranch Rescue. So that's an added feature to the show. Not to mention the fact the whole auto whirls and topsy-turvy is not

the pandemic and the crazy pricing, the short supply, the supply chain and eruption, microchips, all that stuff. They've been going on for years. I mean, here we are, minding our own business and three years ago, and bam,

the whole world erupted in this crazy, crazy economic, I should say, medical pandemic, COVID. And if that isn't enough, we have the electric vehicle revolution, and then you want a little sauce on that?

How about artificial intelligence? I'm telling you, every day you get up and the world changes again. unbelievable you got to hang on and we're trying to hang on we're trying to help you we're trying to kind of come down to earth a little bit because we could be talking about autonomous and all that other stuff but the fact of matter is you need transportation you need to go out there and lease her by a vehicle and this is why we're here so things are fairly fairly focused in that

area well actually they're not focused but they're a lot more focused than in try to contemplate the whole universe. If I start talking about electric vehicles and autonomous and artificial intelligence will be lost in the clouds in no time at all. What we do is try to help you find a car dealership to buy a car and get treated with respect and courtesy. Try to get a good price. The prices are coming down. They truly are actually. Incentives are starting to build. now it's not uniform so when I say prices are coming down depends on the car the manufacturer some vehicle are still in short supply and you're going to have to pay through the nose over MSRP but some vehicles we talked last week about jeep I was amazed to find

out that of course Jeep has a huge day supply the dealers have more jeeps than they want to have and that's good for you so if you want to buy a jeep be looking there's a there's a jeep out there's a jeep out there with a $12,000 factory rebate. I just saw that on the automotive news. So we'll be talking about those kind of things to help you. And just so we don't get carried away with buying and leasing, I got Rick Kearney sitting on my ride here. He's a certified diagnostic master technician.

And I think if we actually measure the two-hour show, Rick gets more calls than anybody. I mean, let's face it, how often do you buy a car? How often do you lease a car? Four, five, six, seven years? But you've got to repair your car and you've got to maintain your car at least every six months and maybe more often if you've got an older car. So before you get in trouble with a mechanic that you don't know, dealership or independent, describe the symptom of Rick. Just give us a call at 877-960-99-60.

That's 877-9-60-99-60. And Rick will actually directly not if you really want to get personal with Rick. He monitors our YouTube channel, Erlon Cars, forward slash, I'm sorry, YouTube.com, ford slash rolling cars, YouTube.com, ford slash rolling cars. He also has an amazing following, some regular callers and new calls from all of the country. Now, I was looking at our stats the other day. Jonathan will correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe we are actually. We actually have viewers and listeners from 18 countries. I mean, I'm talking India, the Philippines.

I'm talking Australia. It's crazy. Don't forget Rome. Yeah, I mean, I don't know where you buy. I don't know the first thing about buying a car in India, but good luck, that's all I can tell you. It's probably easier than it is in the United States. The United States is a focal point of the flim-flam-haggle-hassel car dealers, and we got a lot of them.

And a very high percentage of them are in South Florida. That's where we're broadcasting from now. But anyway, let's get back to Rick. If you have a squeak, rattle, or roll, you don't know what it is, or a smell, or a drip, drip, drip, or all these crazy things that happen with cars. Oh, Rick. And you can text him at 772, 497, 6.4. I said 772 4976530 or go to YouTube

Earl store or on cars.com or slash YouTube and describe it if you really want to get fancy you can send him an audio file or you can send him a video file that is really Michael we just we almost had a workers compensation event here Jonathan almost got knocked out of a chair everything's okay We talked before we went on the show. Relax, enjoy your show. But I didn't know that Jonathan was going to be. Something dropped on the.

He's okay. Jonathan is fine. Back to Rick. Rick can answer just about any question, and if he can't find it, he goes to Google or some other source. He's fast. Fast for the fingers.

I promise you he'll save you a lot of money. Now, we do prioritize telephone calls, and we only have limited number lines coming in I think it's like five so if you call and wait too long we know we're going to lose you although we do have two hours we don't want you to wait in that long

so Nancy Stewart my co-host sitting on my left here she watches that phone like a hawk and when the phone lights up she has all the information on her laptop computer and she will stop Rick or stop Stu

oh by the way Stu will be here My son, Stu Stewart, will be here this morning, or stop me from Yakken. We go to the phone, and Nancy answers the phone. And I'm going to turn the mic over to her because she has a special offer. You new folks don't know about this, but especially you ladies, listen very carefully. We have a very special opportunity offer for ladies who have not called the show before. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Errol Stewart-on-Cars.

We enjoy your company. You're a big part of the show, and without you, well, it wouldn't be as successful as it is today. Ladies, I have $50 for the first two new lady callers. Yes, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Give us a call and say hello, or maybe you could share whether you purchase, leased, whether you had service, anything at all. 877 960 9960 And as Earl said

We have a special guest in the studio This morning And that's Charlie Charlie will be here And he'll dazzle us and you So stay tuned for that And Charlie's from the Big Dog Ranch That was an artificial part

The dog is not here yet That was you know who Rick I believe that Charlie may sound just like that because he comes in on his weight at 55.6 pounds. Give it to us again. Oh! Because Charlie happens to be a black and tan coon hound.

That's what I'm talking about. He's a hound dog. There you go. Okay, folks, as you can see, we're going to have a whole lot of fun. Give us a call. 877-960. 9960. You can text us at 772-497-6-5.

Don't forget your anonymous feedback. Your anonymous feedback.com. You can get in touch with us in Seoul. You have so many options. Take advantage of it. We're going to go right to the phones, and we're going to talk to Jean, who's been waiting. He's calling us from Jupiter. Good morning, Jean.

Hi, good morning, everyone. I have a story, hopefully, a quick story to ask Rick about why this thing happened. My husband and I, in 2015, we flew from Florida to, California, Sacramento, and we're going to go up to the coast to Canada. And while we were there, we stopped at a little park, had a cute little lighthouse there. We rented a 2015 Jeep compass. When we come out from the, seeing the lighthouse, the

key fob and the key would not work in the car. We could not open it no matter what we did. So we went to an office. It was getting late in the day. It was getting chilly. Went in a office called AAA and they were there probably maybe within a half hour. When we came out, the car had been moved. We did not move it. Somehow it got moved and then the key fob and the key worked and we were able to, you know, resume our trip.

So we just want to know how in the world that could have happened. And the miraculous thing is someone else got in the car and moved it. And number two, they didn't steal anything, you know. They could have stolen the car. They could have stolen our content. That's a twilight zone thing. This sounds like, yeah, you were on the West Coast, California there. This sounds like my buddy Art Bell with Coast Coast A.M.

He does all the paranormal stuff. The best I can tell you there is there is a very, very slim possibility. Now, you know your chances of winning, like, the Powerball or something are huge, but there is even a tinier, tiny, or tinier chance. that another key fob of a similar car to yours, the same manufacturer, might have the same code to get in and start that car. Do you know what those stats are? But for someone to move that car and then simply move it over

and then realize they're in the wrong car, that, no, you really are sounding me more like you've got a case of the Twilight Zone going here. I'd want to see if there were any webcams around. Maybe it was videoed. Any chance for that? That'd be fun just for your own information. Yeah, no. And I'm thinking, you know, and thinking back,

I was kind of looking around to see if there could have been another car like it, because I kind of thought of that maybe. And I did see another Jeep, but I didn't really notice what kind it was. But it was just so strange. And actually, I did call Chief Chrysler about it. I think while we were waiting for the AAA to see why, why we were locked out, and they really didn't, although they didn't mention something that it's possible, it got scrambled somehow. But that was all they could say.

Well, one thing to bear in mind with smart keys, where it's using a radio frequency, it's a transmitter, basically, by FCC regulations and rules, these little transmitters cannot cause interference on any other system, and they have to accept. interference from other systems because certain systems like say first responder radio systems always have to take priority in you know in cases like this in airlines anything else so you know there are times when electromagnetic pulse high tension wires they can cause those radio signals to goof up and the key doesn't work that's why you have that little mechanical key to get in the car And then to start it, you simply hold the fob up to the start button while you press the button. That negates the radio signal and lets it work as a normal key. But for someone to actually move that car, that's the creepy part.

Yeah. We'll ponder that, Gene. That's really going to keep us scratching our heads. But if we figure it out, we'll let you know. And Gene, real quick, I'll share with you that Earl and I have had the experience of, you know, parking the car, going into wherever and coming back out in hitting, you know, that car that we thought was ours. We were trying to open it, and it was another car and didn't realize it until we got inside of it. So that has happened to us.

And by the way, it was not a great car. Chief Compass in 2015. It was okay going maybe 40, 50 miles an hour, but we got on the highways. It was scary. It just did not feel good. It was not a nice call. Well, it was great to hear your story. Stay in touch with us and give us a call.

Let us know how things turn out. Yeah, I really enjoy your show. Thank you. Thank you. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-49-3530. And I want to get this information out to you that you will need from time to time. and it comes from one of Earl's columns how to know if a Florida car dealer is breaking the law

you can go to www.W Florida Law Protectingcarbuyers.com take advantage of that. It is a big help. Our text number is 772-497-6530. We have a great mystery shopping report coming up and so much more. Back to the recovering car dealer. Now Rick mentioned earlier from Gene's call

about the remote possibility that a keyless remote, could be duplicated, maybe every 5,000. If you go back far enough when we had ignition keys, it was about one out of 10 or 15. And I had an interesting experience at the old Palm Beach Mall in West Palm Beach, Florida. I was driving a Grand Prix. I was a Pontiac dealer then.

So I came out, I saw my Green Grand Prix hopped in, cranked it up, and headed back to the dealership. And I got all the way back to dealership before I realized that my briefcase wasn't in the back seat first I thought someone had broken my broken in stole my briefcase and I realized this wasn't my car so both key the opening key opened it yeah the square opened it and the square started around the open you know I went all the way back I'm thinking I'm being arrested I'm looking to see if the cops are looking for me and then I then I tried to find the parking place that huge lot and fortunately

the parking place was still there so I pulled the car back in got out wiped off my fingerprints I'm only kidding. But I got out of the car and found my car and drove up. It's amazing. You're lucky that that person didn't get in your car and went home with yours. Yeah, exactly. Interesting stories that we have. An interesting story, not good news, but did you hear about the derailment in Arizona, new cars, vans, what else did they have? They don't drive prices up a little bit, yeah. Yeah, there was probably, I think, 23, maybe even more.

more, but that comes at an unfortunate time, especially with what's going on at the port on the West Coast with, well, a lot of negotiations. Well, Stu's back, he's feeling better, and, of course, he is the Cybermaster General of our undercover agent, Agent Lightning, that does our Mr. Shopping reports, and I always forget to mention that because we've been doing thousands of them. I mean, but it is a unique factor. I need to mention it every week because if you're new, you ain't seen nothing yet. You need to stay tuned for a mystery shopping report.

That's in the last half hour of the show, right after we do the dog of the week. And people are afraid to do it. It's legal jeopardy, really, because, you know, you go in and you pretend to be somebody else. We pretend, Agent Lightning, it pretends to be a car buyer. or less sore. They're going to buy or lease the car. She is. And goes to all the, you know, negotiations or whatever pricing. And she reports exactly the treatment that she gets in the dealership. We name of the dealership, the location, we name the sales manager. Everybody she meets, we get the names. So it isn't, you know, some sort of a, this is kind of a bad dealership. We tell you

exactly where they are, what they're located, what they did. If they break the law, we actually, we tell them, we say this liable in the air, this dealership broke the law. And, of course, a lot of you lawyers out there, and I know you're listening, and I know you dealers are listening to, but you don't call in. That's why we have anonymous feedback, but I digress. The reason you don't sue us, because we're telling the truth. And you lawyers know that liable and slander, that's a pretty serious offense.

There's one perfect defense. You cannot be convicted of libel or slander sued for libel or slander if you tell the truth. So we always tell the truth. I mean, why not? The truth is stranger than fiction when you go into a car dealership. I mean, you can't believe some of the things that we report. And Susan's in charge of that, and we archive those on our website, Erwin Cars. So if you don't believe me, just go to Erlan Cars.com.

look, mystery shopping reports, and read one. And we archive hundreds, hundreds of reports on our website, and we classify them. We have our recommended dealer list, and our do not buy from this dealer list. Unfortunately, it's not worldwide, even though we reached the world. Most of our shopping reports are from Florida, but we do have them in Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Agent Lightning gets around, and we have a pretty good,

diversity. Most of them are in South Florida and frankly the South Florida reports are the worst or the worst car dealers down here are the crooked of the crookedest and they just take advantage. You've got some down here that you don't know why they're not in jail

well some of them are I think but if you want to buy a car don't come to South Florida you know the further north you go the better it gets and then some states like Pennsylvania particularly the smaller towns They've got some pretty nice car dealers out there

So we're great on the curve I think we have a telephone call We do We have, you know Jonathan is this an accurate statement We've had a lot of calls from Tennessee We've had a lot of calls from Tennessee Okay, we're going back to Tennessee

And we're going to talk to Lance And Bob, hang on Bob's calling us from Lake Park Good morning, Lance, welcome Well, good morning, Harold Good morning. I wouldn't let you know is the plans for Earl Stewart Day

this year are already underway. Oh, boy. Uh-huh. It's going to be a fantastic thing. We did talk about that last week. Yes, Earl, I, Rick, I've got a 2011 Toyota Camry hybrid that has all of 255,000 miles.

And I've spent, I've two years I spent probably $600 on repairs But I've maintained it well with all that It's a wonderful car But it's not worth a hoot plowing guards with But I just like that freak so well Of Koryoga I mean I

I just think that There's such fine cars And I just You rarely ever hear anybody say anything to the contrary. Yeah, you can't get a good tiller attachment on the back of those. The plow blades just don't work. They don't work for hay rowing either, but they're good for traveling cars. They will get you around point A to point B beautifully.

Gets you across the nation with no problem. You're not going to carry a whole lot of hay or feed with you, but they'll get some vegetables moved. Hey, did you find Wheely a home? It'll take whatever you can fit in the truck. Did you find Wheely a home? I believe they're still working on that with Wheely. Did we hear anything about Wheely yet?

Did we have adopted yet? We haven't got to call yet, but we'll certainly let you know. We should follow up, but we'll check with a dog of the week gal when she comes over and asks about Wheely. That was our first dog of the week last week for you new listeners. and we're trying to find a home for dogs in the last half hour of the show. Just to update, folks, wheelie is a husky mix. She's almost pure white and lovable, lovable. She does have a minor issue where her back legs are basically straight.

She cannot bend her back legs. So she just kind of walks around like she's doing a wheelie. But she gets around just fine, and she is a beautiful dog. she's out at big dog ranch rescue so if anybody if you're looking for a new companion that's the place to go

and we're also looking for folks to help foster dogs out there how about you Lance um nah I'm in pretty good shape on dogs okay but we're so busy

tied up with this Earl Stewart day thing next year right now and Lance if I go to Earl Stewart Day, are you going to have a convertible and some pretty girls, and you're going to ride me down the street so I can wave? Earl, what we're going to do is hook you up to a set of mules and pull you down. I don't know about that. Aye, aye, aye.

It's in Tennessee. Well, Lance, it was great talking to you. Thank you so much for calling. us a call again. Okay, before we go to Bob, I'm going to continue with Rick was talking about Big Doc Ranch. You know, we have been associated with Big Doc Ranch for quite some time, and I don't know whether anyone by now hasn't heard about Earl's book, and that's Confessions of a recovering car dealer. I'm not sure whether you know or not, but all proceeds, all proceeds go to Big Dog Ranch. They're donated to Big Dog Ranch.

And this book has been, you know, on Amazon for quite some time, and it can be purchased. And the, yes, I have that. We, can you see that book? There you go. Confessions of a recovering car dealer. Beautiful book. You can buy it for a friend. You can buy it for yourself.

And it's affordable. I believe it's 1999. And like I said, it's something. you can put on the shelf and have forever. Very informative. And you can go to big dog ranch rescue.com, I mean, dot org. We are going to go to Bob, who's been holding in Lake Park. Good morning, Bob from Lake Park. Good morning. Good morning. How's everybody today? We're well, thank you. Stu, is the Novakane wear off yet? Oh, almost, almost. He's drooling. I don't know how it feels.

He'd drool it. Yeah, that happens when you get a lot of Novakame. It had a lot of Novakame. Yeah, that's a good thing. I'd like to make a comment about last week's shopping report. Uh-huh. There's 2,400 Jeep dealers in the United States. That vehicle that your mystery shop are picked out is a one of 500 produced vehicle.

they only made 500 that model it's a special it's a special vehicle so I think you know if you're going to look for something like that you've got to expect that

you're going to pay a different price than a regular well thanks Bob that's good information yes and that's true I mean that's what we're seeing you know even at like without super rare cars the ones that are the

typically the volume cars are the ones that They're more willing to get to MSRP on, but anyone that has any kind of production constraint on it. We're just a typical low-supply high-end man car. Those get the prices up through the roof. You know, Bob, Jeep announced, actually Stalinas, the manufacturer, announced a customer incentive on the Jeep Rangler. And I'm sorry, the Jeep Wagoneer, $12,000. Now, that's just like the good old days. You never heard of a $12,000 incentive.

So any of you folks out there thinking about buying a Jeep, especially a Jeep wagon, Grand Waganeer, the dealer might not tell you about that $12,000, but you'll sign a paper if you take delivery of it that says that you assign that incentive to him. So $12,000 whap, right off the top, buy the manufacturer on the Jeep Grand Waganeer. Right, but I think that vehicle, the MSRP on that, if I'm not mistaken, is extremely high on that vehicle.

That might be one of the most expensive vehicles that they sell. Yeah, I believe it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, anyway, I wanted to just talk about this Jeep Beach. They only make $500, and I didn't realize it, but they have something called Jeep Beach Week up in Daytona, where everybody brings their jeeps and they drive up on the beach. It's an annual thing, and I thought that was quite interesting. But one other thing I'll say about that dealership that you shop last week in his defense,

if you go onto his website, a lot of those fees and his advantage plan on there, which was quite expensive, I think it was $2,495. That's all advertised on his website. So he's not really trying to hide the fact that you're going to pay these other things when you come in to buy a car there. So, you know, I would suggest when somebody's going to go buy a car, the first thing they do is maybe go online and read at the dealer's website. And this way you won't be so surprised when those numbers show up because he did put it on the website that, you know. Yeah. Well, some are more accurate about that. than others, but you're right.

You want to jump in. I miss last week's mystery shop, but just doing the mystery shops week after week, that's very rare, very rare when the information on the website matches what we experienced in the show. It should, and if they're following the law

and everything, they should, but especially down here in South Florida, uh-uh, we don't see it. Right. Well, some of the deal I looked at another one because I was actually able to find that vehicle a Jeep Beach at another dealership in Inverness and they actually

were discounting it off MSRP however it was very vague on the website they did indicate that they would have fees on there and there could be dealer installed options

but they did unless you actually go into the dealership I guess or you talk to somebody online and you really don't know what you're up against until you're working in the number. Right, until you're there. But in this case, for the scholarship last week, he clearly put it on his website that he had this advantage plan that he puts on his cards. And he put out the amount that's on it, and he put his other fees on there, his doc fee, and everything else.

So I think it was pretty evident. Well, thanks for pointing out. That's very fair. And we want to be fair. Yeah, if we miss something, blame my brother Josh. She did the mystery shopping report last week because I was drooling. Okay. All right.

One other thing, my cats want to know when they're going to get equal time on this show. Well, we have a cat that we, she's passed away since then. Ali, I'm sorry, he's passed away. And I think we need a replacement cat, so you're welcome to call in and she can meow on cue. She's welcome on the show. All right. Well, good luck with the dogs anyway. All right.

Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Bob. Give us a call again. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6-5-30. Hey, I'm sure everyone has heard about Elon Musk and Mary Barra. I'll tell you what. Did you ever think that the two of them would be sitting in the same room together? Amazing.

Money does that, though. So it's a good thing. These superchargers, wow, there's going to be a lot of them. and Elon Musk is going to make them available to GM, just like Ford. So it's an interesting story that will continue. Now back to the recovering car dealer. Well, I just want to repeat now again about, we're talking about Stalantis and Jeep. Jeep is the car manufacturer that has the most cars.

So it's all about supply and demand. They have a big supply. They're assigning incentives more and more. So when you go car shopping, if you're looking for something that is scarce, you're still going to pay through the nose, supply and demand. But if you're a Jeep fan, now's the time to buy. Also, I'd like to say that when you go in to buy a car, I have a blog idea that's actually next week's blog. I actually re, what is the word, rebooted Nancy's idea. a long time ago

and we have a blog with a contract that you can look at read it and if you take it to the car dealer and ask him to sign it it will assure you that you get an out-the-door price

so if you if Nancy will hold that up there and show you the blog it's is that on our website now though it should be Josh is doing it's you sent out on Fridays now, so I'll double check that you should be at earlancars.com

but it's basically car buyers guarantee and it's pretty basic. It just says when you're negotiating when you're shopping around for a car you insist on getting this alpha door price and they have to sign

that they give you that door price. That way you can shop and compare the price and you also have to let them know because they're going to tell you how many days that prices good for so if you go to erwin cars.com and you can look at car buyers guarantee that's the latest blog if if you have the courage to go to that car dealership and say okay that's the price you gave me would you please sign here telling

me that I have the real price and if they sign they have to stick to it because it's a legal document just a tip if you're going to go car shopping And by the way, a lot of people, we still talk in terms of car shopping, and I have a visual image of people going into a car dealership. When you go into a car dealership today, you're asking for trouble. You need to contact those dealers digitally or by telephone. You can contact many more dealers. The conversations are actually more productive because you eliminate all the nonsense. And you control the conversation.

go into a car dealership physically, you're on their turf. That's their home ground. They have a system. When I say a system, car dealers have a buying, selling system, and they know exactly ABC do what to do. You bought a car, you know what I'm talking about. You're greeted. A salesperson talks to you. They ask you to make an offer. They take the offer to the sales manager, and the games begin and you're under their control. When you're at home in the comfort of your living room or your home office or wherever you are, a phone, a computer, a smartphone, you're in control and you can remain anonymous. With that, you say how do you remain anonymous? Well, you make up an email address, you get a free email address from Google or Yahoo or a number of other sources,

Microsoft, and you can have that strictly for your car shopping. You don't have to give them a true phone number. I wouldn't recommend that. So you use strictly online. And collect best prices, out-the-door prices, from half a dozen dealers. That way you save a huge amount of time and you get a much better price. It's a car buyer's guarantee for an out-the-door price, and you can go to roll on cars and find that all of Earl's blogs and columns are, you know, available and you can pull up today's, yesterday's, last years, whenever. And, you know, this past week, a lot of questions were asked, and one of the questions were, you know, how do we build trust here, you know, on our show? So much trust. And, you know, I said that by doing the mystery

shopping report, weekend and week out. And we've been running from the Wild Wild West for, well, a long, long time. But you take a look at those mystery shopping reports, and they're done for a reason. And the Smiley Master General and Agent Lightning, what a fantastic job they do to make it all pretty clear for you to pick and choose where you want to go for a vehicle. Give us a call tool free at 877960 or you can text us at 772-4976530 and don't forget your anonymous feedback.com. Now back to their recovering car dealer. Okay, let's get you some text or YouTube or do we have any. Yeah, we can jump over to Ann Marie's. She's got a text waiting for us. Rick ought to pay attention. I think this is up your alley. Amory says, good morning. In the old days when a tire went flat.

could call AAA, AAA, I mean, one could call, I missed read that, one could call AAA, and they'd either plug it or put it on the full-size spare. Not anymore. What would be done nowadays if a set of tires had 35,000 miles on them, and they still had good tread on them, but one tire picked up a nail or maybe had a bad valve stem? What do you do in cases like that nowadays? If you look at the tire, the very last tread towards the outside shoulder, if the nail is in that last groove or towards the center, then we would patch it. We do not plug tires anymore. We patch them. It's a much safer repair. If the tire is not repairable, say if they had to drive on it on the sidewall for a while and it's damaged the sidewall, then we recommend replacing it. And we will put on just one tire, but we usually, if the tires are really worn down past 50% tread, we'll recommend two so that you don't get a radial tire pull or cause the car to basically pull one side of the other. Okay.

Well, that answers the question, Mary. I wish you would call and then you could have a follow-up question. And just my own personal preference, both of my vehicle's mine and my wife's vehicle, I have not only a nice. long breaker bar so we can change the tire easier if need be but I also keep a little battery operated compressor that plugs into the power outlet the cigarette outlet in your car and it can take about five to ten minutes but it will pump up a tire so if you have a nail in your tire and the tire's gone low while you were in a store or something you see it's just a little bit low

you can add enough air into that tire to be able to safely get to a service station to have that tire repaired and it'll save the life of that tire that tire that's a great little gadget we talk about AAA a lot but we don't endorse them as often as we should American Automobile Association they're a great outfit they're very reasonably priced it's a non-for-profit not-for-profit group and they've been around forever I was on the board of directors of AAA many years ago they have they have approved dealers if you need to know a good place to take a take your car for repair they even have a website you could go to have that written down here somewhere but uh i even use triple a here i'm you know we're

automobile dealers and i think nancy had a was a flat tire or lost a key or something did battery bam i call triple a bam they're out there and i think within a half an hour unbelievably fast courteous very reasonably priced service and if you remember a lot of this stuff is free so I highly recommend that you join the American Automobile Association. You get newsletters and all sorts of good stuff, and there's no profit motivation for them. It's like consumer reports. They're not-for-profit.

They exist on contributions and dues of members. So it's a great way to, I'm going to look for that website they have. It's carrepair.com when I find it all. Hey, what? Oh, here it is. ConsumerReport.org, CR as in consumer report. dot org, forward slash

car repair. You ought to write that down. CR as in consumer report. org, ORG, for slash car repair. And then you put your zip code in, and they tell you, and then you tell them what you want to do.

I want to have a oil change. I want to buy a tire. I want to, you know, I want to have my engine overall, whatever it is. they give you in your zip code the prices, the price range that you should pay, and they recommend various shops in that area. And I will say that you see a lot of independent shops recommended because they take into consideration cost. Car dealers charge more than independent shops.

But car dealers also have the fact that they have the support of the manufacturer, the diagnostic machinery, the training. All that stuff isn't going to add up to a good repair, but it helps. Independents don't have that, and unfortunately, if you have a complicated repair, you might end up having to go to a dealership anyway, but I'm sure that AAA takes that into consideration when you go to that particular website, CR.org for it slash car repair. Great points. We're going to go back to the phones. Stu, we're going to talk to David from Jupiter and Marty hang on. Good morning, David.

Good morning. Welcome. I'm calling from Jupiter and the story I wonder if you could give us some help. My daughter bought a 21 GMC Denali. She was here in February. They drove

back on an off ramp in Georgia and the car died. They got it to the dealer. The dealer said it was at a computer hiccup. They've destroyed the engine. It's been there since February. They got another engine, put it in,

said the new engine is no good. Now they're waiting for another engine. Oh, my God. And wondering what the whole recourse she has. She bought the car in Massachusetts. It's been sitting in Georgia since February. So you said it was a 21, 2021? 21 or 22, I'm not sure.

Yeah. You know, there's a lemon law, but it would be prorated. Any reimbursement you get would be prorated back on usage. So when she took delivery of that 21 or 22 GMC would indicate what she could recoup. If she had only 10% usage, she could get a 90% reimbursement if they can't fix it under the Lemon Law.

But that's something she should investigate. Yeah, but here's a question. they haven't solved the problem of these engines. They're just going to put another engine that could do the same thing next year or tomorrow when she's driving down the highway. She probably wouldn't want to buy another one. You get your money back.

They don't necessarily give you another car. They give you, if she paid $50,000 for that and she had 75% back, then she'd get something like $35,000. She could go out and use that to buy another vehicle. Probably wouldn't want to buy another TNC truck. yeah so but would she be is there a way she could um i think she she should be asking for a replacement is that possible now and then just sell that replacement for it would come on the same category as

cash i mean you don't have to have the replacement but the lemon laws they don't they don't replace the vehicle they will buy it's a buyback um with oh yeah and they they prorate the amount of usage based on time and miles they will work with a dealer and usually uh You know, if they replace the vehicle, the dealer, probably if they ask any conscience at all, which is a huge question, would make the price reasonable. Right. Work with what you got. Yeah, to the customer. But by the way, lemon law is very from state to state.

I'm speaking from my knowledge in Florida. You said Georgia, so she'd have to familiarize ourselves with the Georgia Lemon Law. Just Google it. And I know probably it's going to require that she notify the, dealer in writing within a certain period of time, and they have to allow the dealer in Florida is they're allowed two chances to repair the vehicle. And if they can't do it in two. Yeah, do you mean Georgia or she did buy the car in Massachusetts? Massachusetts, yeah, that's where the law would apply, yeah.

All right, one more question for a different vehicle. 2012 Grand Cherry Cherokee Overland They have a recall For a fuel pump relay That's been going on for years And they can't come up for the pot

What the hell happens? Wow What happens if the fuel pumps Is it going to cost a fire Or is it it doesn't start Or is it cut off driving Or what's the Cut it cuts off

Yeah Dave What I would do is I would demand A loner And you're talking about A vehicle. They should loan your vehicle at no charge until they can get that fuel pump installed because you've got a safety issue.

And again, like anything with a car dealer or a business that's given you a hard time, put everything in writing. Email's fine. A text is fine. A letter is great. But you put them on notice, carbon copy your attorney, and just say,

I require a loaner. I'm afraid to drive my, 2012 Jeep and I'm going to insist that I have a free vehicle to drive until you can fix it. Awesome. Thank you very much. Well, call us back and let us know how that works, David.

I'm always, we give out of this advice, but we'd like reinforcement if it works. We'd love to hear from you next week. Sure. David, we have the mystery shopping report coming on later, so stay tuned for that. Thanks for the call. I want to thank all the ladies that have really helped us to move in the direction that we're in right now. And Earl On Cars, thanks you very much, as I mentioned earlier, $50 for the first two new female callers.

Give us a call. Say hi or share your story with us. We're going to go to Morty, who is a regular caller, and he's calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Marty. Good morning. How you doing today? Hey, morning. Good. Nice to hear from you.

I've got to disagree with Earl on something, and I'm sure Earl will probably... Hang up all the disconnection. I'm sure are we having trouble with the connection? No. Every car that I've ever bought, when you bring in your trade in, or I'm just going to say, over the phone or on the Internet, you can tell them what car you have and that you're going to trade it in. However, every car dealer that I've ever dealt with,

It says we have to see the car. So you have to bring the car into the dealership. Sure. Now, and what I find, when you're there, let's say whatever the price was, and you're ready to walk out for, let's say, a $1,000 difference, you have more of a chance to get the deal when you're there with your car and you're ready to do the deal than you are over the phone

or on the internet. So I don't know if Earl will agree with me or just hang up on me. Yeah, well, I respectfully disagree because if you're going to try to flim flam the dealer and describe the car inaccurately on purpose,

then it's going to be a problem. But if you accurately describe your car, and we do it a lot at our dealership, and this is a digital age. I mean, phone, online, email stuff is really real. It's happening. And we appraise a lot of cars without ever seeing them. And I want to add in there.

Dealers have always done that, but now with the phones, it's not just talking. It's people are taking a video and walking around the car with a FaceTime. We're seeing cars live. The only thing we're not doing remotely is driving them. And so that's the thing is so we can give, and a lot of dealers can give a firm figure. Dealers buy cars from each other online and everything is done online. They have it down pretty pat so that the right questions are asked and the information is there. And you'd be surprised at the consistency.

If you'd ask me 20 years ago, would I ever buy cars from my used car lot online? I'd say you can't be serious. You'd say it can't be done. Yeah, it can't be done. And the same thing with buying. But I know what you're saying, Marty. I mean, it seems to move quicker, but the dealer will be motivated if he thinks that you are shopping your cars. If you call up and say, look, I want to get a price on my 2,021 Toyota Camry, I'm going to call, I'm speaking to you right now, I'm going to describe it to you, give me what you'll pay me for it, and I'm going to call five other Toyota dealers.

They're motivated to give you a real price. the only danger is they're going to highball you so you come in and then they find a scratch but today I don't think that will happen that's true you will find dealers that will tell you on the phone oh to get a better number you got to bring it in but that's not that's just get them in the door tactics that's not really describing like the real dynamics with your trade

they just want to get you in yeah now what I find and I may be wrong and I'm sure you know better than me the guy walks around the car he puts the paint thing on, he sees the car, he looks at the odometer, everything looks fine, he goes back in his office, he takes a half hour or an hour to come back to give you the same price that he could have given you in five minutes. So I know it's all BS, but it's like a game. I don't mind playing the game because I've got nothing else to do.

But you're giving dealers too much credit. Now, from my standpoint as a dealer, what I see is a used car manager sitting in his chair looking out the window and appraised the car without ever getting into it or checking anything. And you'd be surprised how sloppy some car dealers are when they appraised vehicles. So I want my employees at my dealership to spend a lot of time. they don't have to spend as much time now because they have it's faster. Everything's faster. But they are doing, like there's phone calls are being made, different sources are being made. So a lot of times to get a better figure

and that's always in the best of the dealership and the customer. So, um, so some, I mean yes sometimes they're sitting with their feet on the desk, wasting time. Not at our store, but I'm saying you can use car managers. And Marty, with all these, uh, car buying sources, you know, carvana we buy any car vroom and car max i mean there's there's so much competition out there buying used cars today that the dealers that aren't good at buying on the phone or buying online are really going to hurt themselves because there's a huge shortage of good used cars

so uh you're you're a victim of rapid change you're looking at the way things were two years ago or three years ago and today things are light years difference from they were now so you can get a good price on the phone today i'm i'm confident okay one other thing i got to say that maybe you'll agree or disagree also today when you go to a dealership they're either asking over msrp so in the dealership's money they're making five thousand instead of $2,000. Yeah. So they have another $3,000 to play with.

Yeah. So isn't it better to make, instead of making $5,000 on the car, isn't it better to make $4,000 and sell the car? When you can make the money that dealers are making right now, an over allowance on the trade is a discount. You're not going to get that. The only thing you're going to be, the only funny business you're going to run into is someone stealing your trade.

Oh, good. Yeah. No one's desk I mean I don't know maybe GM dealers are desperate to make a deal At least for us right now and other Toyota dealers It's like an endless pipeline of cars and customers It's all automatic now But at other dealerships

No one's really wheeling and dealing Hustling to steal deals at this point But you will see people will be over allowing on trades When that comes around it's just discounting Yeah now I don't know if you got somebody else waiting But I'll just tell you one thing I went over to Ed Moore's Honda and I was looking at a loaded up a cord.

Trader. Not only, it was, it's similar to the Camry X-L-E loaded up Camry. This car stickered for $39,000. They've got also $4,000 added on to their Ed Morse. Back by Morse. And then they've got another $999 fee. So now they've got at least $5,000. dollars over sticker so it's it's to the point of saying i don't need the car so i'm saying i don't

need to spend five thousand dollars more just to have the odometer go to zero from 40,000 so but i thought ad moers had your back yeah he does but he's a gun in there he's got a gun here back good one marty yeah as far as i'm concerned this is still a racket because of supply. Now, in the old days, when there was ten of these accords on the lot, you could make a deal. But now there was only one of this particular one. That's unusual for Honda. Honda had the biggest increase in sales percentage-wise last month, May, of any manufacturer.

So a Honda, I don't know when you went by Ed Morris, but if you went by the day, you probably they see some more vehicles on the lot of their. They do have more cars. They do with more cars. They've got a lot of SUVs. Yeah. But what I'm saying is for the accord, this model accord, there was only one. Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay, but I always have to agree for the most part with Earl. So do I. He knows a little bit more on cars than me. Thanks. Thanks, Marty. All right. Call again. Nice to hear from you, Marty. Give us a call again. We're going to go to John, who's been holding from Palm City and Roadrunner. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right with you. Good morning, John. Nice to hear from you. Good morning. I have a question for Rick. I have a common-sized battery. It's a 24F. It's exactly three years and one month old. Going to AAA, a car battery, United States, can last the average, 58 months, but,

in the hot, warmer weather like Arizona, it's 41 months. Now, the question I have for Rick is the electrolyte, it's an open, I can add water to it. It's not clear like it used to be. They're cloudy. It's quite cloudy like milky. But I had the battery tested, and it's still tested good. Is that an indication I'm getting close to the end, especially if I see AAA recommendation of the average of 41? months, do you think I should just replace it automatically or stick with it and wait until

it's completely dead? I wouldn't be too concerned about their average lifespan that they say because when they say the average, you can have one battery that lasts six months and you got another battery that last 84 months. So I wouldn't be too worried about those because those throw the numbers out. If it's still passing a load test and today's test, are so sophisticated that it can tell you

if that battery is getting low on health and starting to get that geriatric need that yeah, you're going to need it soon. So as long as it's still passing and the scores on it are nice and high, I wouldn't worry about it.

I would just make sure to top the electrolyte with good distilled water. What is there range on the score of a load check? Was it zero to 100 or how do they do that? Well, it's not actually a score. You'll see a little like a bar graph on it on the tester usually. A brand new battery, you'll see that it'll be all the way across full for the health. And somewhere down at about the 40 to 50% range, there will be a line that says start thinking about a new battery.

And when it gets much below that, then it says, all right, it's time to replace this one. So percentage-wise, just give it a check, John, if you've got 50-60% of your battery left, hang in. there, don't worry about it. I would hold off because there's no sense putting the money out today if you can get another four or five, six months out of that battery. Well, I'm doing my homework ahead of time, and the July issue of consumer reports on page nine, it shows a leading battery with a 90 score,

and it's a 24F mine. It's called a Napa legend. That's at Napa stores, and that's a top leader to them. And then I'm looking at another. one, I want to see what Rick knows about that. Years ago, I used to buy my batteries at Sears.

They had a brand called Die Hard. I find now that Die Hard is back on the market again. They've got 75,000 dealers. They give a fantastic, guaranteed with two-year, road hazard, no-nonsense service.

I mean, even for lockouts and towing and everything all included by you buying. I battery. It's 24,000 or two-year for warranty. What's Rick's opinion about a die-hard battery? Right now, die-hard, the name probably was bought out by another company,

and they may be all owned by one parent company, but basically they're just giving you options to compete against others. You're going to pay a little more for the name, but if they're giving you those extra benefits, it may be worthwhile to consider. I mean, it's like Craftsman tools. You know, it used to be Craftsman with Sears and they were, you know,

had a lifetime guarantee you, if you broke a screwdriver, you walked into Sears, you handed it to them, they hand you a brand new one. Well, now Craftsman has been bought out and that brand is now available at Lowe's. If you have a Craftsman tool, you walk into Lowe's. If it's broken, they hand you a brand new one. Okay, but one other question. question, do you recommend to buy a perfectly sealed battery that you don't see the electronic, the fluid in it, or one that you can add, like, distill water yourself in it, and look at the

plates? What do you have in your own personal vehicle? Mine are sealed units, but then I was, you know, from Toyota through the dealership, so I get a nice discount on, so I'm not too worried about, you know, my part supplies. for the average person, a maintenance-free battery is really the way to go just because it's one less thing you have to worry about keeping an eye on. And believe it or not, a lot of these maintenance places, loop techs, they don't know they're supposed to check the batteries once in a while. And, you know, that fluid level, when it gets down low enough

and those plates start getting exposed to oxygen, you know, in the open air, that puts a hurting on that battery. Yes, absolutely, especially in South Florida here with the heat, that evaporation takes place, and if you have the open type that you can add water to, it should be checked regularly because that fluid tends to evaporate from the heat. Exactly. Hey, Donovan, my buddy on YouTube here, just came in.

He says, die-hard batteries are owned now by advanced auto parts, but they are made by a company called Johnson Controls that Johnson Controls makes probably about 80 to 90% of the batteries on the market today. As a matter of fact, Toyota Factory batteries the ones that come straight out of the factory are 90% Johnson Controls. He beat me. I was Googling.

I had all that ready to throw in there as soon we got off the call. But I think Johnson Controls is owned by Clarios LLC. I'm digging deep. Yeah, see, I mean, it all comes down to all these different companies are usually owned by one big company. When you follow it back, there's one owner. It's all marketing and names and all the batteries are probably the same. That's true because the Napa batteries are owned by the DELCA company in Pennsylvania, and they make it for Napa, and they also make it for AAA.

So, it's very true. Things have changed. And not many of them around. And interstate is another one. Absolutely. Thank you for the information. Oh, you're welcome, John. It was great hearing from you. Have a wonderful day.

We're going to go to the Roadrunner who's been holding. Good morning. Beep, beep. Good morning, Steve. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. Okay, my question is,

with all that smoke that was up in the north, okay, would that have anything to mess up any of the car sensors, like the oxygen sensor or any other sensors where it would throw off the car running good? Good question. Oh, it definitely can have some effects. Filters are going to start getting plugs. Smoke is a particulate matter suspended in air. So, you know, there is particles there. So you're going to have issues with filters getting plugged up, various sensors such as the mass airflow sensor, the manifold absolute pressure sensor, anything that is measuring, anything that has to do with the air.

Airfield ratio and oxygen sensors in the exhaust, I don't think are going to be as affected because they're going to be getting the exhaust right out of the engine anyways. but there are certain others that can get affected by that and things such as the PCB valves might start seeing more residue build-up. How about paint finish? Smoke is definitely going to have an effect on your paint finish. You're going to want to get your car washed and wax

a little more often to get that smoke and ash and that residue off of there. Or come to Florida, get out of New York. I'm not in, matter of fact, I just became a Florida resident. After 15 years. I got my license the other guy. I knew you were in Florida.

I was just talking about other listeners. Okay. And the other thing is, when they're driving up in New York with the AC on, all that odor is coming into the car. Yeah, that's not a good thing. Absolutely. To the fabrics and all this stuff like that. And I'd also recommend replacing those windshield wipers

before you start heading into it. and replace them often because that's going to deteriorate the rubber on those wipers, and you're going to watch your visibility in that situation. Okay, so let's say I'm a New York driver, and I take my car back to the dealer. So it ain't running right, Mr. Dealer. Oh, you need all this, you need all that, when you really don't. You think the dealers are going to be taking advantage of some people? Oh, I'm sure.

There will be air filter specials left and right. Oh, yes. Inspection, free inspection, smoke inspection, and then they'll, yeah. You're absolutely right. Somebody always profits. Jonathan just suggested keeping your AC on recirculate, but remember even while on recirculate, you're still getting a certain amount of outside air being drawn in so that that air doesn't get stale inside the cabin. Very good.

All right. All right, everybody, have a good weekend. I'll talk to you's next week. Thanks, Road River, Steve. So, thanks a lot, Roadrunner, Steve. Have a great weekend. 877. And Johnny Z. Fradley just said,

The smoke up there smells like Canadian bacon. Probably smells good. Ha-ha. Thanks, Johnny. Yeah, that was cute. Okay, we're going to go to Dawn. Dawn is calling us from West Palm Beach. Good morning, Dawn.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. What can we do for you? I have a 21 Toyota Sequoia Platinum, and I'm from West Palm Beach, and I found it on the internet over in Pinellas Park at a Mercedes dealership. And I brought the car and had to Earl Stewart, and I know Elaine for many, many years. And he did the Bluetooth. And I was complaining to her prior to that that in doing a conversation with the Bluetooth of the car after three to five minutes, it totally disconnects.

And whether Rick or someone knows the answer to solving that. Is everything up to date? First question, what type of phone are you running? I have an Apple. Okay, iPhone. What model is it? What's the latest on the market? Is it a 14?

14 is the latest, yep. Okay, I think it's a 13. 13? Okay, odds are you are on the automatic update, but I would still go into the settings on that and check to make sure that there's no updates in the phone itself is the first thing. The second thing I would do is if you get an opportunity to go by the dealer,

ask them to check and see if there are any updates available for the radio itself, for the software on the radio. Make sure to get both of those taken care of. And the next step that I would try is I would delete the car from the phone, totally erase it, and I would erase the phone out of the car. As a matter of fact, I'd even go so far as to do the deal. delete personal data on the radio itself in the car. It's terrifying to do that.

It sounds, but it's really not that big a deal. You're just erasing the phone out and then reconnect it back in, and it will get all the data back in there, but it basically reboots everything right back to the beginning and see what that does for you. Just those are the basic steps that 99% of the time that solves all. the issues. Making sure your phone is up to date is one of the most important ones and making sure that the radio software in the car is up to date. Yeah, deleting the app and reinstalling. I'm doing that fairly frequently with other

applications and it is terrifying. You just have to bite the bullet and say a prayer if you're religious man and say, please let my phone... We need different words. You know, you can't delete is a bad word. There needs to be a word that's like delete, but it's in the cloud. I know it's in the cloud, but they always reassure you don't worry about it. But you still feel that fear. I know what you're talking about. You're right, Sue. Delete is not the right

word. Yeah, we need something that's kind of like delete. It's a 21, Sequoia? Yes. Yep. So worst comes, I don't think, you're not likely mild, how many miles on the car? When I bought a month and a half ago, it had 4,307 miles on it.

So I'm assuming you're still under 36,000 miles. Oh, it only has $6,500. So worst comes the worst, if the updates and these things don't work, you're under warranty, and ultimately you could have the whole headset replaced. Right, if it needs it would. If it needed. With the 21 Sequoia, I'm willing to bet that there's at least two software updates that have come out already, and those are covered under warranty.

And it takes about a total for the technician. It takes about 15 minutes to do it, but plan out about an hour to an hour and a half, because, you know, they've got to run all the paperwork, the tech's got to get the vehicle into the shop, you know, check and see what the software numbers are, and then download the proper update and get it installed. And I know you've rebooted your phone. That would be step number one.

You reboot the phone. And then that's when you get into the scary stuff, like deleting your personal data and deleting the application. Well, you're actually just telling the phone to forget that car. Yeah. And then reintroduce it. Would anything have to do with me having Bluetooth hearing aids? Oh, I have those.

What kind do you have, Dan? Don. Phonics. I think it's called phonics or something. Yeah, Nancy, I have Jabra Resound's manufacturer. And we have a heck of a problem with that. We're always rebooting and things like that. A lot of rebooting, Don.

Bluetooth is part of our, Bluetooth is ruining our lives. There is a slim potential possibility that it's trying to switch the Bluetooth back over, but it should actually be able to keep both of those Bluetooth connections going for your car itself. But that may actually be the issue. If the phone is trying to connect with your hearing aids when it's already connected to the car, may take the hearing aids as priority and switch over to them. So you've got to decide whether... Which one you want.

But if his music works, he can't hear it because his hearing age won't work. True. Exactly. Now, here is a bypass to make it a whole lot easier for you. You should have Apple CarPlay in a 21 Sequoia. That should have Apple CarPlay in it. Just put a cable in. Plug your phone right into the cable and let the phone work through the car.

for the Apple CarPlay for your music, your audio books, your maps, everything like that. Now you've got all those features operational, but it's working through the cable. Great idea. And not through your Bluetooth, and the phone's Bluetooth connection then goes straight to your hearing aids, and it puts everything in a working mode. Oh, this all sounds so simple. Doesn't it? I make it sound simple.

Definitely not. Come and let Rick do it, and he'll be fully responsible when he screws your entire phone up. Sure, I can do that too. Don, if you want to see a comedy show, just come to our house. Nancy and Earl sitting in the kitchen and trying to achieve all of this, and it's constant. It's so repetitious. I mean, we are constantly at this. Yeah, and I don't have a little four-year-old living.

in my household to do all that kind of. Crazy part. That's actually true. Welcome to the 21st century and the frustration. You know, who were thought 20 years ago we'd be talking about, you know, reboots

and all that kind of stuff. But that's part of life. Yep. And Elaine, I've dealt with Elaine and I will tell the airs that she is so fantastic. Thank you.

Thank you much. She is. We love her. Thank you so much, Dawn. Okay. Have a good day. You too. Give us a call again.

If you didn't hear earlier, we have a special guest coming in to the studio, and his name is Charlie, and he's from Big Dog Ranch. He's got four legs. And you need to tune in and take a look, and if you choose to adopt a dog from Big Dog Ranch, you can go to Big Dog Ranch. You can go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and you'll have all the information you need right there. Okay, the phones are on hold for a little bit, and I think we'll go to Rick. Well, let's see what we got here.

Got a few points back from, oh, this one from Donovan, I did want to mention. He says, on the idea of GM, switching over to the Tesla Connection. and using the same exact charging connector that Tesla uses. He says, this is such a big deal with GM and Ford switching to the Tesla NACS connector that it's likely that every other automaker will do the same. He says, I would strongly advise not to buy an EV from any brand who has not said that they are going to switch to that particular designated connector. Which is another reason why you're going to have to, because a lot of the way,

A lot of people are thinking just like that. Excellent point, Donald, but thank you. He says cars using the CCS connector already have a horrible charging experience, and now there's likely to be very little investment into those CCS networks. Cars would have to have a software update just to support an adapter that would go from the CCS to the NACS-type adapters. see and Johnny comes in to say yeah they must have designed the lunky

clunky CCS connector to feel like a gas pump so that part gets a little interesting here and let's see also he mentions next year when the tax credit is at time of sale few people are going to buy other stuff on electric cars

during these crazy prices and he mentions this because He says a fully electric Model 3, Tesla, after the tax credit, is around $30,330 right now. Yeah, they're bragging in California that is cheaper than a Toyota Corolla. So the world is a changing. I only wonder about one issue with the Tesla. We have a lot of people here in South Florida that they're seasonal. They pop back and forth from up north to down here.

But a lot of the cars, they ask, how do I keep my battery up? They're parking their cars in places where they cannot plug in even a little trickle charger. How then are they going to be able to keep the battery up on an electric Tesla? I mean, while they're gone, leave their way. While they're gone for several months. That's a very good question because they will, you know, very, very slowly. It loses, we had a caller last week said about 2% a day. The Tesla, the answer you and I have, it loses about 1%.

a day. So in two months, you're losing 60% of your charge, but you've still got 10%. So I guess the answer is you need to have somebody charge that car for you. It wouldn't be such a big deal. I mean, to ask them to charge it once for you, you know, take it somewhere to what they call a rapid charger, the supercharger, yeah. Yeah. So that's something for folks kind of might keep in thoughts on electric cars. Yeah, definitely. Great. great information, Rick. We're running out of a little bit of time. We're going to go to Stu and we'll get some text.

We'll go to Rick. We'll get some YouTubes because we have Charlie coming in shortly. Okay. Here's a text. It is a kind of an emergency text, urgent one, but they maybe should have called. Urgent question. I'm out of town. This is for you, Rick.

Pay attention. I'm out of town in Orlando. Four hours from my home and the engine light and my 20. 2014. Jeep Grand Cherokee Limiton is illuminated. I stopped at advance auto that did a code evaluation. The code was P.O. 128. Cool at thermostat temperature is below regulating temperature. How serious is this? Is it safe to drive four hours home? What needs to be fixed when I go to my technician back home and sincerely appreciate a response? Thank you. Most likely cause for that is that the thermostat has stuck in the open position. Basically, the thermostat is a little cap valve built into the cooling system that it will stay closed and block off a certain amount of the cooling so that your engine coolant will circulate through the engine more and not through the radiator and this is to give the engine a chance to get to operating temperature very quickly. Once it reaches operating temperature, the thermostat will then open and the coolant begins flowing through the radiator so it keeps it. at that nice average temperature.

If it gets stuck open, the car takes a lot longer to reach proper operating temperature, but it's not what I would call a breakdown issue. It's not going to leave you stuck alongside the road, and it's not going to overheat the engine. It's going to take too long and get hot enough. Yes. It's not going to get too hot and breakdown. You know, I just Google that. I'm saying mixed contradictory Googles.

I'm saying the system is running too lean and the coolant issue both for the PO 128 for a Jeep numerous things could trigger that system running too lean can also cause that meaning that you're getting too much air not enough fuel and there again the car is not able to get its operating temperature to properly regulate

the main thing I would do in that case I would clear the code watch and see if it comes back but I would also just keep an eye on the temperature gauge to make sure that your temperature stays in a reasonable manner on it. So he's okay driving home four hours as long as he does that? Okay. Well, I hope you hadn't, you know, change your plans,

but it looks like you can make it home. So thanks for texting. We're all caught up on text here. Okay, Rick. Well, I got one here. As a matter of fact, again, Donovan, he says, if a Tesla, the car, sits for a long period of time, It'll go into a super deep sleep and will lose almost zero battery power.

If Earl sets a home location and turns off your sentry mode while at home, you'll lose 0% on your battery power on the Tesla. Wait, with century mode on? With it off? He says turning off century mode. Oh, yeah, yeah. I did that when I was driving it. I took it off.

I thought it was a really cool function, but it drained my battery ridiculously. Ah. So maybe Tesla's could make it six, eight months. even sitting with and not lose all their battery power i i didn't have the cool i don't think i have the cooling mode so century mode century mode century mode yeah it's it's the uh security feature oh i did have the century mode on oh i did yeah if you did it's going to drain your battery oh okay oh it's under the security system you go to security yeah and then okay i'm not coming here and just listen i'm not that's amazing wow that is

Fantastic information. And then one other here from James Fronte, he says, what are your thoughts on the long-term reliability of the new 2023 Subaru Ascent Touring? My opinion on Subaru is A-plus. If they could build more cars, they would probably take over the market because for some reason, they have just, instead of caring about being number one, They have concentrated on quality so much that they have made an incredible car that almost nobody knows about. And they got incredible commercials, too.

Their commercials are great. My best friend, my best friend was looking at cars and came back to me looking for Toyota's, but he was also looking at Subaru's, and he asked me what I thought, and I was honest like I am on the show. And I told him, I rented the Subaru up in Philadelphia, and I thought it had surpassed Toyotas, certain things and it was a fantastic car and I'd love to drive one and he bought one quality number one okay um do you have yes consumer reports um they um they are recommending like all of them i think uh super wrapback the saltero what was the question what was that model do you know what the assent touring the assent touring that is also uh recommended i believe

I'm going to dig in and make sure Is there a dog behind me? Yes. Really? Right outside the door. I sensed a dog nearby. I'm a true dog lover. I am just.

Great sense. Great senses. Yeah. Okay. All right, Peggy, you can come on in with Charlie. Yeah, bring them in. Come on in. You've already been discovered.

And Charlie has arrived, and Peggy is here from Big Dog Ranch. Peggy's along with two legs, and Charlie's got four of them. And you can come around. to the corner over by Rick. Am I supposed to move to him? Jonathan. Earl stays right where he is. Okay.

Okay. This is the second Big Dog Ranch Rescue event, and we're kind of scrambling around the studio here. We're getting our dog of the week, Charlie, situated. We have Peggy from Big Dog Grants. Hey, Charlie, how you doing, my friend? Hi, Charlie.

Oh, yeah. Which a good doggy, yes, you are. And there's Mrs. Sunrise, Nancy Stewart, and Charlie and Peggy. And we're getting ready to find a home for you, Charlie. You hang in there. Looks good. Look like you need a home, and you love everybody. You're going to be on camera pretty fast.

Yeah. So this is very exciting, and we're almost ready. And I think that where did Rick go? He's right behind you. Oh. Yeah, Rick's a cameraman. So be patient with us. We're just learning here to get everything done right here.

And I wish we, I wish Charlie were a little taller. You can't reach the mic. Well, you got the cameras on him. Okay, yeah, cameras on him. Got a great tone, got a great tail. Love your scarf, Charlie. and uh charlie hi are you a Pisces

there i heard you let's keep it on Charlie Kim now we can we can we can gab all we want as long as we can see Charlie your birthday huh wow you're beautiful all right so tell us about Charlie what's uh what's his story

well good morning um Charlie is a two year old town mix weighing in about 55 pounds he is just an all around great dog He comes to us from Georgia. He loves to walk on the leash and take his walkies.

He's great with other dogs, loves to play with other dogs. I think he would be great in a home with children. Toddlers may be a little bit much for him only because he likes to give stand-up hugs and it might knock them over. But he's a cuddle bug. He's just an all-around great pop. and I like the way he wags his tail. He's showing all his loving emotion. He loves attention. He loves Uncle Earl here. He's just therein. How about he loves to have his belly rub, too.

He's a little bit, he's just a little bit shy when you first meet him, but once he knows you, he just, he'll be your best friend. He loves to cuddle. Charlie's looking for him forever home. Honey, I want you to come over here and sit here so you can see Charlie up close. Okay. Hey, Charlie. You handsome boy. Okay, your change, John. Oh, let's not forget this is a radio show.

Hey. This show has gone to the dogs in a wonderful manner. See, that's the effect, this beautiful boy. I'm not even here in a microphone. I hope you can hear me, everybody, but this is such a sweet. He's a great boy. All right, so as our adopted dog, as you know, if you adopt through us, Jonathan, can you hear me? You may speak out.

Okay. If you adopt through us, Charlie or any of the other dogs, a big dog ranch rescue, we take care of the adoption fees for you. That's right. So do we have any callers for Charlie yet? So Charlie likes his ears rubbed. That's right. So if you guys are watching this live right now, you know, call somebody or text somebody and tell them to get online right now and take a look at this doggy.

And we also have an option for people who don't want to adopt a dog but would like to foster a dog. So if you could just, if you like to bring Charlie in, if he doesn't get adopted, you can provide a temporary foster home for him. That frees up space for us at Big Dog Ranch Rescue because we're kind of jammed up right now. I'd love to have you adopt them, as Stu said, we're going to pay the adoption fees for you. But any of the dogs out there that you might want to help out a little bit, take a minute, take a dog in for two or three weeks just to provide extra space. It'd be nice.

Yes, great information. Take advantage of that, everyone. Charlie needs a forever home, and you can go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue. and dot org and adopt today. Thanks for coming out, Peggy. Thanks for having us. Thank you, can I ask you a question? Yes.

Where are the other locations for Big Dog Ranch? I know we're in Laxahecee, but we're in Alabama, is our other facility. What part of Alabama, do you know? What's that? What part of Alabama? I'm not sure, to be honest. So it's a big facility. Very big, it's fairly new.

Yeah, very good. So you folks in the Alabama area, we just Google Big Dog Ranch Rescue, we have a very large facility in Alabama and I believe there's even talk about another facility so we are we are growing gangbusters we bring dogs in by the way from all over the world uh Puerto Rico China where there's a problem where dogs have a problem we're there we fly him in sometimes and we put them up at the ranch okay all right thanks Peggy he wants to wave goodbye yeah we have to get we have to get the winning shot the big smile Because this boy knows how to smile.

Please adopt this beautiful boy. Bye, Charlie. Good luck, Charlie. All right. Thank you guys. Give me a call. Let me know how everything goes. Okay.

Charlie. Yeah, Willie didn't get a home yet. Really? The one I had last week. Oh, okay. Really? Yeah. Remember the one that was kind of paralyzed?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, folks, we got the mystery shopping report coming up. Yep. Oh. Oh. Don't work. folks. Wheely will find a home

somewhere soon. Yeah. And I bet Charlie will too. You keep me. You keep me posted. Let me know how everything's going. Thank you guys. All right. This week's mystery shopping report is from Central Florida, Toyota.

Agent Lightning has done a couple of long-distance shops. She's on the road again. And so the report she sent in, they're not from our usual area down here in the swamp. The wild west, as we call it down here in

extreme South Florida. The hotter it gets, the more humid it gets, the crazier the dealers get. But Agent Lightning went up out of the swamp a little bit to Central Florida. But believe it or not, pretty much anywhere you find a big metropolitan area, a big area of population like Central Florida or South Florida, you're going to get crazy dealers. So let's find out. What happened? Yeah. Bulletproof. Fest. And don't forget, folks, you can vote on the mystery shop of Central Florida, Toyota,

and you can do that by texting 772-497-6530. That's 772-497-6-5-30, and let us know how you would rate this mystery shopping report. Now back to the recovering car, dear work. Pardon me? YouTube.com.4 slash Earl and Cars. We get more of votes on YouTube than we do anything else. That's true. Is that right? YouTube.com forward slash Erlan Cars.

Okay. Mystery Shop, a central fortitory. Is that one of the biggest toilet dealers, by the way? They're in the, what, top 15? They're big. They're big. They're big. They've been there for quite a while.

I'm going to speak of the first person as if I were the mystery shopper, Agent Lightning. I arrived just before 8. p.m. evening shop. I noticed several sales agents gathered in front of the showroom door. I like the way she called them sales

agents. I did too. I like that. Yenny. Is that not supposed to be Jenny? Is that not supposed to be Jenny? Is that right? Yanny. Yeah. Okay. Yenny, the sales woman, spoke up first.

So I asked if they happened to have any hybrid vehicles in stock. She applied that they did, but only one 2003 crown sedan parked right up front that's a brand new model folks that's all Toyota dealers are very excited

about that the Avalon dropped out of the lineup a couple years ago and everybody said including the customers and the dealers when are we going to get another luxury car well we got one now the toilet dealers are thrilled about the new

crown and this is a 2023 just parked right up front They're kind of rare. I mean, we had one, didn't we? We got a couple. Yeah, we got one coming. She asked the phone. I've seen one before, what I meant to say.

She asked if I'd like to see it, Yenny, the salesperson, and I naturally said yes. Yenny mentioned she would be right back that we meet at the car. I noticed there wasn't a window sticker on the car. It's always a red flag. MSRP, Monroney label, by law. They're supposed to be there. But to be honest with you. Even in our dealership, occasionally we have to reattach it or something happens, but as long as it's not premeditated, the dealer should have that window sticker there because it's a wealth of information, and it's something absolutely vital if you're shopping and comparing prices, you've got to know with the real MSRP is the window sticker. So it wasn't there. She apologized saying her English wasn't very good, and said something into a radio.

A few minutes later, a guy approached us with papers in his hand. Neither of them introduced themselves, although they were both wearing name tags. So sales manager David welcomed me and handed me the papers stating that they contained the same information as what the window sticker would show. The paper was a Toyota Consumer Sheet, which showed an MSRP, manufacturers suggested, retail price of $42,218. balance, the VIN, vehicle identification number, on the sheet matched the VIN on the car. There wasn't any indication of dealer installed equipment or market adjustments, which, you know, the car just got there that may. But when they come in, they come in with the Monroe Leebles attached.

The dealer doesn't put it on. You have to take it off. Somebody took it off, probably for delivery, like it was sold and maybe the deal didn't go through and they didn't put the sticker back on. That's true, too. But they're not supposed to take it off. If only the customer legally can take it off. Technically, it's supposed to be on the vehicle at the time of delivery.

Frankly, most dealerships don't do that because it takes a while to get it off. And the customer wants to get the car. And long story. I asked about it being a hybrid because based on my research, I thought all hybrids had blue in their logos. I didn't even realize that myself. I'm a Toyota dealer. Well, not all hybrid.

Toyota was doing. Not all non-toidious. Toyota was making everything blue. Yenney explained that this car is exclusively of a hybrid and is similar to the Avalon, but in a hybrid form. This is true. There are no non-hybrid versions of the cross.

You know, crown. Crown. Sorry. CRO on close. Dave has assured me that I was in very good hands, tap Yenny on the shoulders saying she's the best. However, I was never offered a test drive. That's not right. I mean, you should be offered a test drive.

Yenny suggested we go inside so she could work out some numbers. David mentioned that their inventory is quite low and asked if I would be interested in a pre-owned vehicle since they didn't have very many new cars. I declined, emphasizing that I really wanted a new car. He then asked me if I was trading anything in, to which I replied, no. He seemed disappointed, and you're always disappointed. Car dealers, salespeople, always want to have a trade in. for a lot of reasons. First of all, used cars with such low supply now. Car dealers literally need used cars really bad. Of course, they said that before they really need them that bad, so now, you know, it's a question of doubting their integrity. But the truth is now your trade-in is worth a lot of money. They want your trade-in badly, and it's a good tool for you to use to negotiate the best price you can.

but you always get competing prices on your trade-in. Once inside, Yenny had me sit at a high-top desk, asked for my license and contact information, she then excused herself to speak with a sales manager. About five minutes later, she returned with the sales worksheet, a standard worksheet in her hand before showing it to me. Worksheet is something preceding the vehicle buyer's order. Why? Because it's not a legal document.

And the car dealer isn't obligating himself legally. He can be wishy-washy. He can be a little bit casual about numbers on a worksheet because it's not a legal document. This is my offer. I thought this was interesting. Maybe it had to do with her not being familiar with English before showing to me.

She said, this is my offer. You're the one is supposed to make the offer. Good point. When I read that, I thought it was unusual. Then I thought it was kind of cool. I'm like, hey, here's my offer, but you're right, it might have been a language issue. Literally, it is the dealer's offer, but when you say that, then you set up a, well, that means that it's not really. That would be really funny.

I should ask Agent Lightning to, like, to battle on that. She should have said, this is the price. If you're trying to get a lot of money from the customer, you say, this is the price and make them believe it. But she said, this is my offer. proceed to go through the changes on the charges on the sheet. The selling price was MSRP, 48,218.18. Last week I talked about this, it's not the selling price. Why do they call it the selling price?

That's why I put it in quotes. They're like air quotes, the selling price. Then they added $4,190, and I love this, total financed after markets. $4,190. Where do they come up with that? after markets. Then they added a $999 junk fee. I used to call them dealer fees, and they're just additional profit to the dealer and the sales tax. Out the door jumped from, what was it, 51,000? Forty-two thousand. Forty-two. 42,000 to 57, that's a quantum leap. Wow. I expressed I did want

or need, the extras labeled is financed aftermarket. Wise, that's the dealer-installed accessories. I asked if they could be removed, and he said she would see, what she could do, but wasn't sure. I replied, if you could try and depreciate, there's no way I'm buying at this price. Then I mention that I currently own a Toyota and ask if I would receive a special discount for that. And he replied, I don't know, but I'll ask. Nice thing about big a new salesperson. In fact, a lot of veteran salespeople pretend to be.

new salespeople because you tend to feel sorry for them and you tend to think that they're telling you what they believe and a lot of people play that game and I'm new at this I don't think any was I think she really was a few minutes later she returned accompanied by a different sales manager who sat down while she kept walking I had three people already three other different people dealership people but he asked me how soon I was looking to buy since a hybrid in the the armatory was the only one available. I replied that I'd been waiting to buy a car for a while, but I couldn't bring myself to pay full price for a car.

Inform me that he had a new price sheet and showed me a revised worksheet with the extras removed. This was the same, but with $0 for the total advance after markets, Althodore price, $52,000. So $52,000, $7.42,000. to verses 57,095, which is a huge drop in just, you know, two seconds. You know, I don't want to buy those. For those timid people, God help them.

I mean, when you go in. Get the courage to say. And there are goable people, I'm sorry to say, and we talk to them a lot, and we hear them on the show. I hear of them, they call me about my blog and things like that. literally people believe everything some car people say and that's what they they pay obscene profits to car dealers so always ask always ask for a better discount he expressed his desire to make a deal with me that day and asked if

we were close to reach an agreement he wanted me to let him know what price would make me sign right away that's standard operating procedure I respond by saying that regardless I would still need to discuss this with my husband and we would want to test drive the car since I haven't done so yet, obviously. You never buy a car without test driving. I talked about that last week. Sometimes you have to buy a car without test driving because they don't have the car. Well, how about a brand new model like the Crown?

We just got it, you know, that's never been driven before. Yeah. He seemed disappointed and suggested, well, let's go drive it now. I decline saying I would be in touch. A little too late. So there he are. And by the way, I just said something. I need to, if you order a car, and in my dealership, because we have, you know, low

inventories, we have, I think Josh told me that if we got 3,000 cars coming up on huge numbers. 1,300. 1,300 on the list. 3 in there. 1,300 on order. 1,300 cars on order. So, a lot of these people were waiting months. We had a caller to the show that waited over a year.

So, you still want to test drive the car. I'm sorry, but you've been waiting for six months. The car comes in, you test drive it, you don't like it. You're probably going to slash your wrist. I mean, you've been waiting that long for a car, but it's just the reality of the world. You've kind of a pickle there, aren't you? It's a reality of the world today. Back in normal times, I always said to people, don't ever buy a car without test driving.

The reason I say that is we have customers that bought Camry's from us, as an example, for years. maybe this is their fourth Camry and they come in and they want to buy a new Camry and we say fine and they say would you like to drive it and they say no you should always drive it no two new cars are same

you can take two 2002 23 Honda cords identical in options equipment and even color and they drive a little differently cars are not all the same and if you go from one model year to another model year I guarantee you there will be subtle differences.

Some of these subtle differences are visibility. We probably get more complaints from. We had like, what was it, Martin? We talked about the headrest, I think, and visibility out of the rearview mirror. There's a lot of things that you take for granted. Well, here's a really good example. I was driving Avalon's for a while,

and between mid-year changes, the interior had a lot of chrome, like chrome accents put in. Mid-year. Well, I don't know if it's mid-year. I might have just got the car mid-year, but I remember I went from an Avalon to Avalon, and they reflect the light. So on Chrome, these little mini-suns inside the car all over the place,

depending on which time of the day I was driving. And I didn't like that. And never expected it, but it was just there. Something more like that could drive you crazy. They changed that because so many people complained. Yeah, well, not a good idea. Put little spotlights in your car. Ow.

Yeah, it's put a telecom powder around the Chrome. Yeah, literally. Okay, well, that's the mystery shoppery report. We'll love to have your votes. And as Nancy said earlier, you can do YouTube.com for us slash rolling cars. You can do 772-4976530, and we will go around the table. We'll find out what the voters are. I have some votes coming in.

And my screen disappeared. There we go. Okay. Jonathan Wellington, says this dealership's grade plummeted as soon as the The Moroni sticker disappeared. Usually it's a sign of shady dealings. Without it, the dealership can give you any price and claim that it's the true MSRP. That and too many junk fees will garner an F from me.

Looks like the Wild West extends to Central Florida. It does, right up the turnpike. And then Bob, F for Central Florida, Toyota, no test drive offered, rip-off price, fail. Let me do a refresh. Make sure I don't have any other grades coming in here. Now, for me, I know the general manager at Central Florida, Toyota, I will say I believe it in this case, not having the Munrooney label is probable because it was delivered, I think it was it, I don't think they're trying to hide that. The Toyota consumer sheet, while it's not a legal document, if you match the VIN to the car like Agent Lightning did, that is the actual MSR piece. And the salesperson, she was new, but she should have said, I'm sorry right away.

Right. There's no, you know, yeah. However, there wasn't anything on the car that indicated their big add-on package. I don't even know what was in it. I mean, if it's a market adjustment or for its equipment, I don't think we really know what it is. So that wasn't on the car. So it was a surprise when she gets to the desk. And then when somebody comes down that quickly,

That's called a game that's being played. If they're playing a game, and the game is we're going to offer, we're not going to offer this, we're going to present this to everybody, and 27% of the people are going to say, okay, and they're going to make $30,000 on the deal, and then the other 70% are going to say, I'm not paying that, and they took their chance. So it's a game.

They came down, they dropped their pants, as they say, in card dealer parlance too fast. I'm going to give them a deal. A crude term, that is. It is. Terrible. It just means they've exposed themselves, I think. Only car dealers.

I know. There's so many. I think I'm allowed to say that. Anyway, D for me. Well, one quick note here from Johnny Z. Freidley says, Charlie, our dog of the week, comes with no dealer fleas or additional barkups. That's right. Barkups.

We didn't have that one. I love Johnny. You're awesome, buddy. We've done the dealer fleas, but barcups. That's great. And, okay, from Negan 1, still 10K over the initial price, not today. D minus, minus, minus. Not quite an F, but very close.

Kirk in West Buy God, Virginia. Central Florida, Toyota, horrendous markups, but very limited supply, a D minus. Over here we have, let's see, this quick note from Tom Steckle, I shopped Central Florida Toyota and asked them if they could meet my Earl Stewart quote on a TRD vehicle he was looking at. They said they'd lose money if they sold at MSRP with no fees or add-on. Wow. That's good. Okay, so James Fronte, so about five grand over MSRP with the egregious stock fee and mandatory accessories, total BS.

finance anything so listing it as financed accessories is presumptive and indicates a bad dealer D Tim Gilliland well that elevated quickly C-minus Tom Steckle D old-school ridiculous fees plus they don't have anyone as nice as Marlene Levy no they don't Brian said letko no test drive no buy D-minus Mark Ryan C-minus Johnny Z. Fradley, C-minus, give me five bucks, C-minus for trying to add all those fees, and for not having the label, and for not offering a test drive before going over the paperwork. Rocky Blockatiel, there should never be a language issue.

If you speak two languages, be fluent in both if you are in business. D. Myself, I'm going to kind of go with the crowd and say D. You can probably work a deal there, but you've got to be on your toes and be sharp and be on your game. I was going to give them a higher score, but after listening to all that, I'm not. What do you want to hear my score? I got two more here. Casey with a D.

Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. And freaking Florida F from Tim Marini. Yeah. Before you vote, I'll tell you what my vote is. Okay. You know, it never ceases to amaze me, and I have to tell you, you know, it's still very disappointing, truly disappointing, and I can't emphasize enough to be informed, to be prepared when you walk into a dealership, and this song and dance, you know, it just, it comes and it goes, and it just depends on whether you want to play the game or not, and if you do want to play the game,

put on that negotiating hat and do your thing for Central Florida Toyota FFFFF F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F. Yeah I'm a I pulled myself together

I have to listen to YouTube and Nancy So I'm going to give them a C minus I probably should give I probably should give a C I have too much knowledge about the curve. Stu knows the general manager there, and he is an honest guy, he's nice guy. And in general, the Toyota Crown is, I mean, that's a hen's tooth.

That's a rear occurrence. Nobody's got the crown. And if anybody's going to charge you a lot of money. Remember when the Super came out pre-COVID, dealers were charging thousands of thousands of thousands over sticker because low-supply high demand. They thought, turned out it wasn't, so you can buy a super pretty cheap now. So it's supply and demand.

That's what they're doing. And they could be wrong, but I'll, I'm going to give them a C-minus. Okay. Okay. Do we have a little bit of time? Yeah. I have a little bit, here's a little factoid

that I get from, interesting to me, automotive news. Can you believe there's a new electric vehicle coming out with a, I think it's a price record. It's called the Faraday, and the sticker is $309,000.

I've heard of the Faraday. I didn't know it was that much money. 300. And here's another little bulletin. This is really cool. Have you heard of a... We know the Rivian. The Rivian has, I think it's a trucker of an SUV,

and it may what they call a tank turn. Yeah. It turns in its own... Okay. Just by the front wheels go this way and the real wheels go that way. Well, if you've got independent electric motors on each wheel, that's what tanks have. That's how they would do it.

They made it in California. They made it illegal because they were tearing up the... Oh, yeah. That would tend to put some... Some friction in. ...drag. And I got one more thing. I got one more thing, I got to say, as a Fiat dealer going back into the 70s,

and I've always considered Fiat, the joke of the automobile world. And Fiat, pardon me, if this is a politically incorrect, fix it again, Tony, FIAT. I mean, they really were bad cars. And then after I'm a Fiat dealer, they left, went back to Italy, and I'm stuck with all these tools and parts and probably some Fiats. So they came back again, and that was a joke. Anyway, the second coming of fiat over here, I bet you can't guess how many fiats were sold in the United States

in the last three months within here. No. What would you say? 12? Oh, you're low. Huh? He's low? 27.

I guess this isn't so well. 138. I don't know. Wow. And the last three months? And the whole United States in three months. In three months. That's not good.

Okay. All load of news did me wrong this week. You know that, don't you? Uh-huh. I didn't get my subscription. Yes. One quick note from Robert Gardner. He says,

The Big Dog Rescue is in shorter Alabama between Auburn and Montgomery on I-85. Great information. Shorter? Shorter, Alabama. Shorter Alabama. That's easier to remember. But we have big dogs. Big dogs in Shore Alabama.

That's how I'll remember that. That's awesome. A little play on words. Folks, thanks so much for joining us today. As I always tell you, you're a big part of the show. And I also want to mention Charlie. If you want to adopt Charlie, you can adopt he's our featured dog of the week. All fees are paid, and you can go to Big Dog Ranch Rescue, the website, and W.

www.bdrr.org. Also, here's Earle's Confessions of a Recovering Car Dealer. You can go to earlsbook.com for the book. And remember, all proceeds go to the Big Dog Ranch. Thank you again for joining us. Have a great weekend. We'll see you right back here next week at 8 a.m.