Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.12.2021 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of Carl's Buick of Stuart

Episode Date: June 12, 2021

Earl and his team answer various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Earl’s female mystery shopper, Agent Lightning visits Carl's Buick of Stuart to see if she can get the online discount on a 2021 Buick Enclave. Earl Stewart is the owner of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Florida, one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the southeastern U.S. He is also a consumer advocate who shares his knowledge spanning 50+ years about the car industry through a weekly newspaper column and radio show. Each week Earl provides his audience with valuable tips that prevent them from "getting ripped off by a car dealer". Earl has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, and other major publications. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, Fox News, CBS, and other news networks. He is frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on major trends and newsworthy events occurring in today’s rapidly changing auto industry. You can learn more by going to Earl's videos on www.youtube.com/earloncars, subscribing to his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/earloncars, his tweets at www.twitter.com/earloncars, and reading his blog posts at www.earloncars.com. Sign up to become one of Earl's Vigilantes and help others in your community to avoid getting ripped off by a car dealer. Go to www.earlsvigilantes.com for more information. “Disclosure: Earl Stewart is a Toyota dealer and directly and indirectly competes with the subjects of the Mystery Shopping Reports. He honestly and accurately reports the experiences of the shoppers and does not influence their findings. As a matter of fact, based on the results of the many Mystery Shopping Reports he has conducted, there are more dealers on the Recommended Dealer List than on the Not Recommended List he maintains on www.GoodDealerBadDealerList.com”

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

And now, on with the show. Good morning, everybody. Well, we're back for another episode of Earl Stewart on Cars. And sometimes I feel like you think I'm hyping the show too much, but this truth, truly is an important time in history for the automobile business and for you the automobile buyer. Unprecedented, truly. I mean, there's a lot of hype and exaggeration, but truly, it's a dangerous time for you

being out there in the car buying world or leasing for that matter. And even renting, I mean, renting prices are off the chart. As a lot of you know, I'm a recovering car. dealer, and I'm still currently a car dealer, and I just got a notice from Toyota, which is the dealership that we have, that the cost of rental cars have been raised on reimbursement to dealers for warranty, and that's supposed to be a super bargain, and now we're reimbursed $42 an hour on rental cars. Day.

By day, I'm sorry, I wish it was $42 an hour, but we only get $42 a day. I used to be, what was it, 35? It was 35, they jumped up $7. So that's a big jump. Now it's been 35 for 700 years, though. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And that's if you can find a rental car because they're not available. And price gauging is going on in rental, leasing, purchasing, used cars, new cars.

There's nothing safe out there in the automotive world. So please be careful. And I know I'm preaching to the choir, because almost everybody listening today has been listening for a while. And you're educated consumers. But that's okay. I like to preach to the choir because the choir, we also call some of you our vigilante team, and you can spread the word.

And it gets spread a lot. We have a lot of faithful listeners who help a lot of people, their friends for all these neighbors. And if you do nothing more than say, hey, listen, listen are on cars. And I say that with good conscience because we're not selling anything. Honestly, I mean, maybe my book. I forgot to bring a copy, but I wrote a book called Confessions of a Recoming Car Dealer. It's a How to Do It Book, buying a car without being ripped off by a car dealer.

You can buy it on Amazon. So we're selling the book, but 100% of the proceeds go to Big Dog Grants Rescue charity. So we don't make a nickel on that. So truly, this is a consumer advocacy show. Please spread the word. If you have a friend-neighbor relative to anybody that's thinking about buying a car or leasing a car, be careful out there, folks. I'm telling you, there's some horror stories. Dealers' inventories are down to unprecedented lows.

The lots look like, really look like, empty parking lots. I mean, that's almost literally what they are. You can see the difference in color on the asphalt for where the cars used to be. Yeah, we can see the bottom of our parking lot for the first time. Typically, a dealer will have a full inventory this time of year and we'll have, you know, if a dealer is selling 300 cars a month, you'll have at least 300 cars in inventory and probably 600. Today, that same dealer will have 50 if he's lucky.

So that means you as a buyer or a lessor, if you're coming in to get transportation used or new, you're going to have to take what the dealer has to offer. If you want to buy a new car, you're going to be waiting weeks. probably months. And if you want to buy a used car, you better check the new car price and the new car and the used car price because with the shortage of used cars, there's not a big spread like there normally is. So you have to make that decision. I know you say I need a car. Okay. Well, if you need a car, you got to buy a car. And just be careful. That's all. You can still get a decent deal. You're not going to get a great deal compared to what you could have gotten a couple of years ago, but you can get a fair deal. That's all you can expect. Try to get a fair deal. Mr. Shopping Report, we'll talk about that later. It's in the second half of the show, but it's going to be interesting. It's for a local dealer, and Nancy just

sent me a copy of it. Please stay tuned for that. It'll come to the second half of the show. We're on until 10 o'clock, but about 9.30, quarter 10, we'll be talking about our mystery shopping report. And we like them because we get all different kind of dealers. We get, unfortunately, too many dealers out there to rip you off. Too many. But they're fewer, I think, Stu, do you sense that? Nancy, do you sense that? We're seeing more and more good shopping reports, Rick?

Yes. Yeah, it's kind of strange. I think dealers have gone to the extremes, and we've seen them go both ways. So, like, for example, the Gricos, or Grecos, you know, their last two shopping reports were all right. They got C's, and they've kind of moved out of that dismal range therein. And then we've seen other ones go pretty bad. Yeah. I think that this show is reaching more consumers and car dealers than we ever thought.

we have definitely made an impact helped a lot of people and for that the reward a great mystery shopping report I hear that Nancy is always she's out in the public

and like we all are and we hear comments from people where we shop and you know when we're out whatever we're doing we're public's and we hear oh I heard about your show and so that's good though we need to spread the word about

Earl's throwing cars, you're doing a great job of that. And we are looking for volunteers to, we call them Earl's vigilantes. Not only did I forget my book, I forgot my hat. I forgot to have my pants on. Most important, you're here. So anyway, we do our best. And if you want a volunteer to be a vigilante, and that's a, I know vigilante

can have a negative term, but we're talking about a positive. You know, remember the old days, the vigilantes and the old west that we're doing good because there wasn't enough law enforcement? Well, that's what we have with Earl's vigilantes. They are a team to fill in for the

lack of responsibility from our legislators and our regulators to enforce the law. You know, we've got laws right now that protect you. Problems are not being enforced, Rick. It's like the Lone Ranger or Paladin. I think I'll go way, way back.

Who's Tonto? You're too young to remember that. Can I be the Lone Ranger? Obviously. Who was that Maskman? Hey, yeah, when we had the mask, we're not wearing masks in the studio anymore, but that would have been perfect, right?

Yeah. Okay, anyway. So with that said, Earlsvengerlandees.com. You can go to Earlong Cars.com, and you can sign up. We'll get a little profile on you We'll send you a hat

And we would like you to do things like Help your neighbors and your friends You know, your relatives People say, I'm a qualified Vigilante for Earl Stewart on Cars And I will help you And I'll tell you how to get a hold of Earl Stewart Or Nancy Stewart or Stu Stewart or Rick Kearney

You can listen to the show You can call, text them You can read the book You can go to Earl on Cars.com We have so many resources. YouTube, you know, Earl Sturon Cars is on YouTube, YouTube.com or slash Earl Earned Cars. And we have hundreds. We have hundreds of videos out there.

And on practically every subject, Jonathan over, off camera now, does an amazing job of excerpting, cutting out, editing the good meat of my rants. What I'm doing now is a rant. But Jonathan will take a little segment that is to the point, and you'll put it into YouTube maybe one minute or two minutes, and you can see a subject that will be very precisely and clearly presented to you, like leasing. You have maintenance and repairs. Rick does an amazing number of YouTube's on maintenance and repair. And so all these resources. Be a vigilante. Spread the word. They're priceless. And lastly, I'll participate in the show if you can.

We love to have the calls. That's what makes the show. We have an audio line, 877-960-99-60. Forgive us for giving this number out so often. But you've got to remember, we're on the air for two hours, and people tune in for 15, 20 minutes. They get where they're going. They're in the car, and we lose them.

And somebody else comes on board. And so if we don't give the number out, as we go through the two-hour segment, then people don't know how to call. And if you don't call, you won't talk about a boring show. Without your calls, nobody would be listening to this show or watching the show. So that number is 877-960-99-60. You can text us?

I'm not going to give the text number out right now. I'll let Nancy do that in a minute. I don't want to bear you with a whole bunch of numbers, but just remember your participation in the show. is truly vital to our success. And our success is vital to you be able to buy a lease a car or maintain a car and not get taken advantage of. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Let me introduce Nancy Stewart, who is my wife. She is the co-founder of the show. Can't believe we've been around for 20 years, but we have half-hour show one long time ago. and Nancy is also the representative of the female population of the world we are worldwide I mean it's you know

be realistic I mean how many calls do we get from Bollick we got one and that's kind of like on the other side of the world don't think we've had Australia yet we would love to hear some callers from Australia probably midnight in Australia and I ain't going to happen but anyway she has built the audience

of the ladies to near parity they should be at 50-50 we're not there yet and we see life differently we men than women do and we act differently and vivilla difference right

we like the difference between men and women but we need to be we need to come together on the show and that's what Nancy's here for to bring men and women if you're a car buyer you're all the same to us we want to help you Nancy that's a great way to define it Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to take a moment and thank all of you for tuning in our old steward on cars without you.

Well, we're helpless. You're a big part of the show, so thank you. Ladies, give us a call, share your experience, whether it be purchasing, servicing, or if you just want to call and say hello. Because the first two new lady callers, get yourself $50 as we do. every Saturday. You're an important part of the show. And that number is 877-960-99-60. And we have another exciting show. So stay tuned, as they all said, mystery shopping report, and everything in between as far as helping you to make a deal out there to purchase, lease, whatever it is, a car. we are going to go to our first caller who has been holding and that's john who is a regular caller from west palm beach

good morning john hey good morning um welcome i have a question oh thank you thank you the um i have a 2002 avalon that i bought several months ago uh had 60 thousand have 60 thousand miles on it um and the sunglass case with the sunroof they so I called

and they said that the parts no longer available so I decided well I'm going to have to go to the junkyard and find some Teotas there that have it and in the meantime I was also

looking at the multi-functional display unit and the thermostat control for the AC in that because the LCD crystals like burned out went bad and the multifunctional display you couldn't you could barely see it this is my question I replaced the multifunctional display unit but it only goes to the year 2000 the cars of 2002 I can only set it to the year 2000 if I bring the car in. I guess Rick, is there any way to get past that 2000,

year 2000? There should definitely be a way. I'd have to look at a O2 to Avalon. I'm setting my way back machine on my memory here, which unfortunately gets a bit foggy. I would have to look that up to find the answers on that one. Rick isn't old enough to remember. That's a 20-year-old car.

Rick's only 25. I'm only kidding. You got to, well, actually, if you reverse those numbers still are not in close, but actually, I would have to pull that one up on TIS or look at the car to try to see what's going on, but it could be that you've got an older unit that, I mean, there may be something wrong in that display unit that's causing that issue. But, yeah, unfortunately, the government only requires car manufacturers to produce parts for a car up to for 10 years after that particular model has ended so or as as it's well as it's been redesigned

so you know when parts become outdated unfortunately after 10 years they still keep a certain number there's still a few available but they start running out after a while and so dealerships get hard to find what you can try doing though is go on like eBay and some of the other sites like that and look and see there may be a part like that out in old inventory somewhere that some shop has for like for that sunglass holder you other see yeah they it's on eBay they want thirty five dollars for it but I was able to I go to you pull you pay and I was able to get the multifunctional and the thermostat unit and all of that's fixed that you can see them now they're

illuminated you know I only pay sixty five dollars for those two parts so I did You know, on eBay and that, you know, you're paying a premium price on it, but if they're not available around, like at the junkyard, there was, you know, all of the sunglass holder units, they're all broken. You know, I don't know, people just, they're all busted up. Right. So anyways, but, okay, so we can't fix the 2000 year thing. So I got to set to 1999 because it gives the right date and the day at 1999. And here's the hard part that happens while is my car was 60,000. When I put that new multi-functional display in, the car jumped to 190,000 miles

because the odometer is built into the multi-functional display and not the instrument panel. And I know you can't change that because you're not allowed to play with those. And I didn't think to keep the old unit until my wife said something. and, you know, I threw the old getting away, but I wasn't, I'm not going to sit here and sell a 25-year-old car and take it apart to show them it's only 60,000 miles.

Yeah. John, we're not going to try to sell your car either, and congratulations on having such a good car that you obviously took really good care for all these years, but I will say, I just want to tell you that your car is worth considerably more today than it was

a couple years ago. I mean, cars don't normally appreciate what they do today you're in a unique situation so if you ever think about selling the car you probably ought to do it in the next few months because you're never going to get as high a price today as you as you can for the car but you got a great car and there's no reason if you don't need it you're doing the right thing trying to keep it going and you've got such a little mileage you get a lot more use out of that car I got another 50 15 years on that car. Sure you do. Yeah. I like to hear people talk like that. You take care of a car like you have. And even, you know, by the way, parts, I wish the manufacturers made more parts or longer part for the, for the 10 years doesn't seem right to me. But the fact of the matter is you should always get something used or rebuild when you have an older car like that because you'd pay through the nose for a brand new part anyway. And bring it in and let, uh, You can talk to Rick after the show, bring the car in sometime, and he can help you with that reset on the thing.

He says there should be a way to work around that. And hang on that car. You can say you've got another 10 years on that car, and boy, are you getting some economical transportation? Yeah, oh yeah, I drive them into the ground. Well, we haven't met before. We were supposed to meet because I'm the one. And my son has the 1999 Toyota Seltier that you have on your video website. Oh, yeah.

That's right. I met you guys when you guys brought it out. Yes. Yeah. That was really cool. Hey, our Jonathan in the studio sent me a website, and it's, I don't know how I pronounce it, but it's uni depart.com, yeah, U-N-E-E-D-A-P-A-R-T-com. Can you give that to me one more times, too?

You need a part. Oh, you need a part. Yeah, you need, oh, it's so funny how the brain works. I'm looking at this thing going, you need a part. Rick's over there telling me that, I didn't get it. Hey, what a good name. You need a part.com. And I searched, I pulled up a 2002 Avalon, and it looks like every part's there.

I don't know if that's a referral service or it's a search thing, but sort of checking out. I did find some information on the multi-display stuff. And I will say this, we have, our family has a 1937 Pontiac, which was the first car my father sold in 1937, and we had that restored, and it has all original parts. And it took two years to get the vehicle restored, but we were able to find all the parts, original parts. So if you can find a part for a 1937 Pontiac, you'll be able to find a part for a 2002 Toyota, if you're persistent. And thank you very much, Jonathan. You Needapart.com. That's an interesting website.

We'll have to check that out. Keep it on file. Well, just one last thing. Me being from Detroit, I had a 70 GTO judge, and it took me two and a half years to restore that back to original. And a lot of my parts came from Hershey, Pennsylvania. The Carlyle Show, there's a great big car show there in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where if you've got people that are looking for parts,

That's the place to go. Great. He runs once a year for like a week now. And that's where I was able to find a lot of original equipment, you know, OEM stuff. Well, thank you, John. That's a great call. It applies to a lot of people out there that know how to take care of a car and continue to drive a car and come out way ahead of the game economically

because you don't have to trade a car every three or four years. It costs you a lot of money for that luxury. Yeah. Call again, please, John. Thanks. All right, so we'll come now. I'll bring it in. Thanks, John. 877-960.

You know, I might take advantage of that. You Needaport.com. Yeah. Do you think they have trapezias or rhomboids? Anyway, I digress. They should speak specific automobiles. www. www.

Your Anonymous Feedback.com. take advantage of that if you'd like to remain anonymous you definitely do you remain anonymous you can ask whatever you want make a comment give us your opinion 877 960 960 if you want to give us a call and we are going to go to a first time caller and that's steve from steward good morning steve uh i i have an unusual situation uh and uh Earl, I know that you know, Ray, I'll just use his last name, starts with I, and he's a car attorney. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and a few years back, we were also talking with you because I have a disabled sister-in-law, and she had bought a car at a Toyota dealership, and she had it for about six, seven days, and she did not like it. she went back to the dealer and asked what she could do and what kind of car she wanted and she said she would like a lexas so they just happened to have a lexas dealer as well and i don't remember i don't know if you remember this but they packed her first toyota into the lease with the lexas and she was paying seven hundred and thirty dollars a month on a month on a lease on a lea

for the IS, I think, 250, or a pretty basic car. And being that she has very little intellectual skills, she went back to the original Toyota dealer and leased another car. And the car, the car, this week I've been talking with her, I said, do not dare to go buy a car by yourself. I will go with you whatever you want to look at it over the weekends.

And yes, unbeknownst to me, yesterday afternoon she called my wife and she said she leased another car. And I knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to go where she bought the first Toyota and go back and get another one. This car was in 2018. I'm sorry, noise there. with the car wash. 2018, that

they paid it off through October, and they gave a lease car, another car. And her, 2018, had 3,000 miles on it. And I was begging her to just let me sell it for you and go buy

a new car. My feelings were that the car is worth a lot more in her hand she should be owning it and selling it and maybe then going to lease the car but I was just wondering if that was the right procedure because she was like dealing with nails she just wanted to go there give it to them

well I remember that and I know the dealer and it was the dealer's under different ownership now but the dealers in no it was sandy the whole time oh it was it yeah okay and they went to the

I was thinking okay yeah it was sandy yeah it was it's so leasing is the one area where people can really be taken advantage of because so few people understand it and the dealers certainly don't explain it

and they take the money owed on the first lease and they roll it and then the next lease and you think you're leasing another car and you're basically leasing two cars because you're paying for two at the same time and hence the $730 a month payment it's unconscionable unfortunately it's illegal i mean it is legal but it is certainly immoral and i'm really sorry that she was victimized like that it happens every day and uh well is ray is our friend ray still around yeah i haven't spoken to him why i don't Do you mind if I mention his last name?

I'd like to give him some PR. He's a consumer advocacy lawyer. His name is Engelsby, Ray Engelsby. Been around for a long time. And interestingly enough, back when I was a recovering car dealer, we were adversaries. And he sued me, and we fought each other going back 30, 40 years. And as I evolved from a crooked car dealer into a recovery, car dealer we became friends and now we're colleagues and I refer business to

Ray and and he and I have lunch together and but yeah I don't I hope he's done retired but and I hope he's doing well health-wise he's he's been around a long time I know that but thanks for thanks for bringing his name up I I think fondly of Ray we we have a lot of laughs together because it's fun to talk when we you know we can we can sit there and talk on the phone or have lunch and talk about when we were enemies, and then we talk about how we helped each other. And it's good to be a recovering car dealer. Well, I'll tell you, I'm an attorney as well.

Oh, okay. And I had called Ray because I didn't know anything. I knew what the case was going to be, all different parts of it, but Ray came to my office and met with my sister-in-law. One of the first questions he asked her, and this goes back to the... original Toyota, why don't you like the car? What's the problem? And she said, I don't like the radio. And Ray and I were ready to throw her out the third floor window of my office. But she's not truly all there. And she's 73 years old, and she walks in, and they've been

calling at her at home to come in, telling her that she doesn't want to buy it, which I told her, just buy it. If you don't buy it, I'll buy it and sell it and get a few bucks for you because of the mileage. And she said she couldn't be bothered. And we all said she'll buy the car someday in the next few days and not tell anybody or at least the new ones again. And we were in court for quite a while. And then she did not want to go to trial because she didn't want to testify in court. That's a shame. Yeah, these are the victims I talk about in my blog articles and that's the reason we need people like you, Steve, that attorneys that understand what's going on.

You see the worst of the worst of it and your testimony to what we talk about on the show every week. What goes on with the victims of the America, the very old, the intellectually challenged, the language challenge, the very young victims, people that are just easy prey to car dealers that all they care about is how much, I mean, how unconscionable to make $10,000 on a lease.

I mean, a retail lease should, if you really have a full, we call them in the business, full list, you know, get all the money, you make $3,000 or $4,000 when you lease a car. To make three times that, it's just unconscionable, but it's legal, isn't it? You're a lawyer, you know what I'm talking about. The laws don't protect the victims. Well, if you have a second, I want to tell you one quick story that just happened also. Sure. My head paralegal drives, she worked for a very big firm.

The guy used to give her bonuses in the form of his lease cars to give them to her. And so she's driving a Jaguar that's about two years old right now. Well, two years with her, but it's about five years old. She took it up to a Jaguar dealer to get a new Jaguar. car, and the guys said they have to take it out, and two guys took a ride in her car, and she stayed with the salesman. And when they came back, they parked the car, what I measured, roughly about 100 yards from the office, or the dealership building, showroom. And they came back, they parked it there, they told her that she can't drive that car. I have to give her something to drive.

It's spewing oil, and it's flowing out into the asphalt that they put it on in the back, and it absolutely cannot be driving. This is one sharp girl. She's one of a few paralegals who make the kind of money that she makes, and she's a very nice-looking girl also, and she's 61 now. She said, forget about it. I'm driving it. You guys are crazy.

She went to her repair shop that she normally uses the mechanic, which give him a little plug. It's called Crown. I don't know who they are up here. And Crown said, Tammy, there is nothing wrong with your car. And in the Jaguar, there's an extra pan down there that will catch the oil anyway. And he said there was not a speck of oil. it was not where it was supposed

to be. I see. Well, that's unconscionable and it happens every day. Steve, let me ask you a question. Maybe you wouldn't want to do it on the air, but if you could text or give us your contact information, I'd love to have

someone like you who cares about consumers in this area. I get calls every now and then. Who do I call if I need an attorney? And I'd like to have you on that list if you don't mind. Sure. You know, The only thing is, I have lemon-lawed nine cars of my own. Wow.

And there was a dealer that once, I bought my kid a car, a BMW 540, maybe 15 years ago or so, a used car at a Mercedes dealership, and I had lemon-lawed a truck, a Mercedes truck there, and I had lemon-lawed a BMW truck from them. And on the way out, I knew everybody in the dealership. They were actually a large dealership, part of the Asbury Group. And the sales manager with whom I was dealing, and the salesman said, well, here's a car that Steve won't be able to bring back. However, it was for my son, and he takes things, when he gets cars, he's got six, seven cars.

He's mainly Porsche's and Mercedes. But he's now he's 38 years old, and he does very well. He has nice cars. So it comes that. As soon as we get home, he puts that BMW in the garage, and he starts going over it all himself. And the trunk was a little bit dirty, so he was going to pull it out and wash it. the fabric stuff and he pulls it apart

and there's Bondo in the rear of the car we take it back to the dealer and I said go take a look at that trunk the general manager general sales manager was Bob at the time an Indian fellow

and I said I guess Steve got to bring a car back huh? And it turned out that the buyer for them the buyer of used cars was buying stolen cars and that W was one of them so the dealership was not insured

for the stolen car apparently and a real mess well you know I got to have you on our list you know I in fact Stu maybe we ought to have one our on cars we should maybe have a list of recommended for Ray and Steve yeah Ray and Steve

if you give us your contact information we will start a recommended list of consumer advocate you need someone like, you know, you're the last resort. I always recommend, I always recommend to people that call me, listen, try to resolve it with the owner, if you can't get the owner, the general manager, and try to do it amicably. But when all else fails, a manufacturer should be contacted too. And when you have to go to an attorney, you have to get a good one.

And you sound to me like a really good consumer advocate attorney. So we'd love to have your name. The general manager of the Toyota store and then at Sandy's Lexus store, I got on the phone with him, and I went through the situation, and he said, what do you want me to do? And I said, knock off that second payment or we're going to be in court, which we ended up, and I had to call Ray. But he offered, he had the audacity to call me back.

She's paying like $7.98 for the Lexus. And he calls me back and he says, I can take $25 a month off it. Oh, no. Insult. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's your proof of the pudding that we talk about on the show every week. And it goes on. People don't hear about it.

It gets quashed. The media really bothers me is the fact that the local media, particularly, protect their dealers. Why? Because they spend so much money in advertising. And if a local dealer, you almost have to commit murder if you're a local car dealer to get in the paper

they will go after anybody else national companies they love scandal they love to report bad companies except a local company that advertises with them they can get away with anything

and we need people like you to hell but I'm so glad you called the show and I hope you'll become a regular caller I'll introduce you real I will I'll introduce you to Brooke real quick I'm at Paradise Car Wash at the moment, getting my car washed, and Brooke, we're on the radio with Earl Stewart. Fantastic.

How do you do? How are you doing? And this car wash is the car wash from heaven. We'll give them a plug. Well, if you like him, we like them. They're fabulous. They really are. Steve, this is Nancy Stewart.

I just want to thank you so much for being part of the show and being a first-time caller. We definitely, as Earl said, need someone like you. And we'd love to hear from you again. Have a wonderful weekend. I'll send you the information to the dealership. Thank you. Very good. Thank you so much.

Gosh, we got a ton of calls. We're going to go to Mike and he'd like to ask Rick a question. And he's calling from Luxahatchie. Excuse me for a moment, Mike. Ladies, $50 for the first two new lady callers. Don't forget. Welcome. Good morning, Mike.

Good morning. Rick, my brother, has a 2017 RAV-4, and when he wants to use a trailer, he has to unhook his backup camera lights to hook up his trailer lights so that he can have lights for the trailer. Can he come to you and where you can do it, or he doesn't have to get down on the ground

to change things around every time he wants to use the trailer? he has to disconnect what part in order to get the trailer wiring the backup camera the camera backup camera that's what they told him some some dealership or somebody told him that's what you have to do I don't see any reason for that it should be pretty simple to set up the wiring to have a four pin plug that's could he come to you could you help him with that yeah we'd be able to do it at the dealership that's not a problem okay could I have

have your phone number where he can know that you're there when he's coming? I'm pretty much always there except for just a few holidays we're open. That we're not open. I tell you, you can text us right now and Rick will have the text right now live on the show

and you just send the text to 772 area code 497-6530 772 are you able to write this down? Yes, yes.

772-497-6530. Rick will have that text immediately, and then we can communicate. You give them your contact information and we'll take a look at that. Because you're absolutely right. It seems silly for somebody you have to get on their hands and knees and disconnect the backup camera

every time you want to use your trailer, and we can certainly help you. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Call again, please. Thank you, Mike. We're going to go straight to Warren. Oh. Warren's been holding, and thank you, Warren, for being patient.

He's a regular caller from Pompano. Yeah, guys, glad to talk to you. I have a situation, it's not me, and I have a cousin down there. I'm up in New Jersey now, but he lives near me in Florida. I believe he just got taken for the ultimate ride. Let me just tell you the story. And before I talked to him, the other day he had his lease blew up on his his Dodge Challenger, and he went to the dealership, one of the ones you reviewed,

and he had damage on the car, and I told him to fix it before it had the damage. We went in there, he saw the damage, and they said, well, you really should fix it because you're going to charge arms and legs, blah, blah, anyway. So they said, we don't have any leases to give you, but we have a better way to do this. They said, this is what we're going to do. And I believe they focused him, and he had, like, one payment left on the car. They said, we'll take care of them. I'm a long story short.

What I believe they did is they lied to me and told them, well, you can't buy this car out on a lease. Only we can do that. They did it, and they resold in the car for thousands of dollars more. Because he told me what the payments were. And I said, well, wait a minute, that's the price of a new car. They gave you, it made no sense to me what he did. And I'm just saying, does he any recourse or, you know, because I believe that, because I think that's untrue, correct? You can't, dealers can't tell you, you can't buy out the car.

Yeah, like from Warren, what I understand, like most manufacturers, you know, that's set in the contract, it's the residual, and that's what the buyout is. Now, we know that dealers add fees and, you know, like inspection charges and all sorts of stuff if you buy out your lease. We did hear recently somebody said, I can't remember what manufacturer was, where a dealer did that, where they jacked it up, called it a market adjustment. And I don't think that is legal. Now, I don't know because I'm only really familiar with Toyota's leasing company. I know some manufacturers, for example, like Ford has the red carpet lease. They do things a little bit differently. And I think the dealers might have some say-so in the buyout, but it sounds like that.

I doubt it, but I, yeah, this sounds criminal to me, but, you know, I'm not a lawyer. We've got to call Steve Beck. Yeah, hopes that he'd be Steve's listening, yeah. There's a case for you, Steve. A great advice. Well, first of all, he doesn't, I don't want to go through with my cousin, but he won't listen to anything to tell him. He's not, no babies in the 60s, but he just doesn't listen to anything. He just does it his way.

And I told him before I left in New Jersey, let me go with you to the dealer. And he didn't want to hear it. And he went, and he told me what he did. I didn't say anything at the time, but what I did was I added up the numbers. And I said, it sound crazy to me. Now he's going to go get the car fix because he found out about three. thousand dollars with the damage and he's done when i added up the numbers i said wait a minute he's paying for this guy bought the car off the league dealer and sold them back the same car for thousands of

dollars more than what the residual was and he's any life it he does want to pursue it because i know him he likes to say i don't care i don't want to do it is he any recourse to that i i you'd have to get you'd have to hire an attorney i mean uh you'd have to be able to demonstrate probably in writing how this occurred, because it would be a he said, she said, kind of a swearing contest. The contract speaks for itself, and I'm pretty sure, and Stu and I agree that the contract states that the lease residual has to be adhered to with certain specific exceptions. Unfortunately, in Florida, they have things like the dealer fee, and that is really a wild. a crazy variable because you can be as high as a dealer chooses to make it. But to be able to completely manipulate the residual value to the customer should be illegal.

And if it was demonstrated to an attorney, he could get, he could probably get satisfaction in court. It's so dangerous today when you are turning a lease car in. I had a call yesterday from a person on the same thing. Elderly parents couldn't drive the car anymore. It was a Mercedes, and the dealer was trying to take advantage of the buyback on the lease. So the important thing is to read the lease contract and say exactly what's permitted, and be sure you don't pay more than that. Well, the question I really have is the end question

Is that does it sound to you You said it on the head That he manipulated the lease end on it Because he told them flat out Because he said it to me He said, well, you can't buy a car on The Dodge Chargers And it's one of those guys you reviewed

Who had to like an F, Z, Latin, whatever And he said, no, you can't buy it off the lease And when he said that to me I said, that's a lie I never heard of that. total lie. I said, I don't know. Many dealers, you can't buy.

And he goes, well, he paid the last, you know, he did this focus, focus, me. And I said, oh, God, I said, and he added up the payments. I said, you just re-bought the car for $40,000. I said, you pay, you was the lease that was for, the car was $40,000 three years ago. And I said, based on the payments, they just added up to $40,000. Exactly.

Yeah. That sounds to me flat. I think that, and I'm not a lawyer. I hope Steve's still listening. It sounds to me that would be a violation of the contract. If you have a residual and then you also have lease payments, common sense, morality, and probably fairness in the contractual term, would say you can't charge the customer all the payments on the lease

when they, in the contract, they could buy it for the residual. And I think, and I hope Steve, maybe he could call the show back in or text us. In a lease contract, the dealer would have to give you the benefit of the lower cost, either all the lease payments or be able to buy it at the residual. I don't know. It's a legal question. Yeah, I mean, I'm not under the type of person like I said. He won't admit a mistake.

So even if he paid $100,000 for a car, he wouldn't admit it anyway. And, you know, he'll just say, oh, you know, whatever, that's who he is, and you know, you can't change it at 60 years old. But I just, you know, I just wanted to tell him that what he's what he's doing it. I don't care because, you know, it's not my money, his money, then do what he wants. But the last thing is just if I use cars, I have the, I think I mentioned, a 2010-4 tourist with 165,000 miles on. Anyway, it needed some work, and I didn't really want to spend $1,000 on that, which I had to do about three weeks ago. But the guy who fixed the car after me, he said to me, after he's fixed it, because the car is in pretty good shape,

painted, the lettuce, the whole nine years. I said, well, are you interested in selling you? But I said, well, last week, somebody offered me $2,500. He said, I'll give you $5,000 on the spot for it now. So you're talking about, you know, how used cars. Last year I could get $2,500. And the guy who fixed the car wanted to give me $5,000 less than a year later. Well, again, spread the word, Mike, and, you know, when the people, Warren, I'm sorry, spread the word, Warren, I can only say that I can only say that this is something that needs to be uncovered and needs to be addressed.

And people like you that can help and advise friends and family, are you a vigilante, Warren? I would love to have you on the vigilante team. Well, I'll think about it, but when I come back down to Florida in the winter, I certainly would think about it. Good a hat. It just annoyed me that my cousin, I told him that I'm down there where we like eating dinner or lunch twice, four times a week. But like I said, you can't talk to him. He makes up his mind to do something.

And even if he's wrong, he wouldn't admit it. But I was just curious, and you pretty much confirm what I ordered to figure it out. But all right, guys, thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. Okay, Warren. Thank you so much. I have a question for the ladies. How are you getting the most out of a tank of gas? You know, ladies, with all of the hats that we wear and how busy we are,

have you changed your driving technique? Is there any strategy that you can share with us? Remember, you can win yourself $50 this morning because the first two new ladies, callers, $50 if you give us a call this morning, and that'll help you fill that tank. 877960, or you can text us at 772-49730. Don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We are going to go to John in Palm City, who is a regular caller. Good morning, John. You there, John? Hello, John. Hello, Palm City.

I'm sorry, we must have dropped the call. Okay, we'll take advantage of this little space in, and we're going to, we never introduced Stu, and he is a huge part of the show and the mystery shoppering report, so he could share a few details with us. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Stu. Soon. I'm Earl. Hey, that's Rick. I'm Earl also. I bet you guys didn't know that. There's two girls in the studio.

I'm going to jump right into the text just because we had a lot of calls this morning. It's almost 9 o'clock and haven't gotten to Anne-Marie's text. So we'll start off with Anne-Marie. She says, good morning. I've been window shopping, new Toyota vehicles online. I've noticed that interiors are now either fabric or soft-text. One, is this switch from leather to synthetic due to supply challenges due to the pandemic?

Or has it been a trend over the years? Two, is Softex or Leatherette superior to leather. Three, is there a leather shortage? Four, is Toyota turning vegan? Just wondering, thanks. And, Amory, Softex has been around for a while now. I'm going to, at least 10 years. I'm going to say...

Have you seen the advertisement, please eat chicken? Oh, that's what... Yes, exactly. That would work for Softex as well. The answer to that is it's probably, it's better for Toyota. It's probably a cost savings, but it's also a weight savings. So soft-text leather weighs half as much as leather does when you put it in a car. And with hybrids and fuel economy, that's huge.

The other thing is it uses way less CO2 emissions to make than it does leather. So in a sense, there's an environmental reason. And then when it's in the car, and this is my favorite because I'm one of the weird people who hates new car smell, it outgasses way less volatile VOCs. There's volatile organic compounds, which can cause cancer. That new car smells, all a bunch of chemicals, and there's less of it with soft techs. And then, since we've had it around since, I think, 2009 or 2010, we're seeing a lot of these cars over the years coming on trade, and it wears way better than leather. It doesn't crack.

It just lasts a lot longer. You left out one thing. What's that? The cow lobby. Right. The cows are really pushing against the leather thing. So, yeah, those are the reasons, but I bet you the main reason it probably costs Toyota less to make, or to put in a car. Fantastic.

All right, we can go on to another text. Let's see. Let's go to anonymous feedback. Are there any Asian trucks or SUVs that run on diesel fuel? And yes, Toyota has some, but they just don't sell them in the United States. Right, Rick? Correct. What about other, like, Hyundai or Honda, anybody else making diesel vehicles?

Nissan, but they use a Cummins Turbo Diesel from here in the U.S. Okay. So there's your answer right there. all right next one here's a movie recommendation you should watch the 1990s movie class action perfect explanation of why they have no fix for the airbag it's a it's a simple actuarial actual aerial analysis just say for argument sake it costs $500 to fix each airbag on every GM vehicle it may cause GM $25 million plus the actuaries crunch numbers and realize that maybe one out of out of every 200 or so cars have the bad airbag.

If each customer sues and wins, the monetary payout will be about $10 million. It's cheaper to deal with the lawsuit, assuming everyone that sues wins money, then recall every car and fix the airbags. I know a loss prevention manager at Walmart, he told me that even if they have someone on surveillance video intentionally spilling a liquid on the floor and falling down, quote-unquote, because of it, Walmart will pay them $5,000 to $10,000 and sign a nondon. disclosure agreement and settle. It's cheaper to pay them off than to defend the lawsuit in

negative publicity. Sadly, sadly, that's true. It's a, you know, we, Nancy and I watched it a bunch of legal series now, and a lot of these are based on facts, and we see exactly the way the world runs, and it's, you know, follow the money. It's unfortunately true. It's a, there's an argument. There's always a push pull between morality and fiduciary responsibility to stockholders. Think about it. All the big companies are publicly owned virtually. And so if you have a, I'll be right with you. If Rick has a YouTube. If you have a situation, there is a pencil being put and a calculator being put to the issue. And you're caught between a rock and a heart price if you're a corporation. If you do what's right for the morality portion of it, for the customer portion, you can be violating your fiduciary responsibility to your stockholders.

So you could be sued by your stockholders if you were a director or an officer in the company, just like you could be sued by the customer on the other side. So corporations are caught between a rock and a hard place, and it's our system. That's the way our system works. And the answer is you just have to be aware, informed, and when you find a lawyer, find a really good one. And if you have a moral, ethical issue, you've got to be prepared for a big fight. Corporations can't throw the towel in.

If they throw the towel in, they're still going to get in trouble with their stockholders. That's right. Okay, Rick. I was just going to see. I think I recall that movie, and I think it was, based on the story of the Ford Pinto's, where the fuel tank was badly designed, and a rear-end collision could cause them to burst into flames. And that was one of the things that came out was Ford, their bean counters decided that it was

more advantageous to pay off the lawsuits than to redesign the car because it would be cheaper. Yeah. The question is, was it immoral? How immoral was it? When you are the CEO of the corporation, or you're on the board of directors, you go in with your eyes wide open, you have a legal, and you could even call it moral responsibility to your stockholders. You know, take a pension fund, you know, life savings in the pension fund, or you take the widows and orphans idea. Their money is invested. in your stock. And so you make a moral decision to keep your conscience clear and do the right thing by a customer, causing your stock to plunge in price, and suddenly there's not enough money in the pension fund that owns your stock to pay the retirement for the people that own your fund. So they're both ethical problems. And I think what we're looking at is just a huge conflict in legality. Where do you go? The shareholder can sue, though. So if they made some boneheaded moves that caused that whole thing, then the little lady could a whole bunch of litigation. Exactly. You know, speaking of attorneys and, you know, this whole conversation that you were talking about, you know, the consumer report has an article in it.

And I just can't wrap my head around it. And that is the lack of key protective technology. These trucks are being sold. Oh, is that in the newest issue? Yes, in the safety features that these trucks lack. This is in the July edition of the Consumer Report is certainly startling. And the Colorado, that is the Chevy, Colorado, and the GMC Canyon, and also the RAM-1500 classic features that keep you alive.

Three most dangerous pickup trucks in the study. Those three. Read those again, will you please, Nancy? Okay. Jonathan is, I can't read from here. It's too far away. The Chevrolet, Colorado, and the, you got it? The GMC Canyon, and also the RAM, that's the 1,500

classic. I mean, things that they lack are the automatic emergency breaking system. There's a list of them. We don't have time to read them all right now. As you can hear, we really have a busy show this morning. But pick yourself up the July edition of the Consumer Report, and it will, you know, grab you and it is a very interesting little. That's great information and by the way the article goes on to say that one of the reasons these particular trucks are particularly dangerous is because they're too big and they keep making the pickup trucks bigger and bigger and the bigger the trucks the more blind spots you have and the more visibility problems you have. When you're in one of these big trucks you don't have the visibility and you do need the pedestrian detection. You

do need the emergency breaking. You do need the blind side notification because you're driving in a tank that is very difficult to see out of. So driving a building. It's a lot of consumer course. Driving a building. Yeah, driving a building. And the hood height on some of those trucks straight from the factory is higher than some of the average cars. Yeah. And things are getting, these trucks are getting bigger and bigger. Too big, yeah. And just like Stu said, it's a building. So at any rate, 877960, 9960, and also you can text us at 772-497-6-530 and www.W.W. Your Anonymous Feedback.com. We are going to go back to the phones, and we're going to talk to Roadrunner, Steve,

who is a regular caller from Boynton Beach. Good morning, Steve. You still there, Steve? Beep, beep. Beep, beep, roadrunner. All right. We lost you. I'm sorry.

Well, we love. Let me ask Bob from Palm Beach Gardens. Are you still holding? Yes. Oh, thank you. Welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much. I've been on a few times before.

The question I have this morning is for Rick. And I own a used 2018 camera that I bought at your dealership. I've been very happy with that car. Recently, I had a mishap with the car where I didn't have feeling in my foot. And I'll go into that in a minute and panicked and threw it into park, stripping the gears. Since that time, in the first and second gear, particularly when the transmission is cold, cars just started up and running, it's sort of jerky to get out of those gears. And I wonder if it's possible to reprogram the transmission with your software to eliminate that problem.

No. Unfortunately, any programming that legal mechanics can do, those programs have to come from the factory, from the engineers, because anything that has done on those can potentially change the emissions. on the car, and the federal government says you cannot do that unless it is authorized and approved by the EPA so that you're not changing the emissions the way the car runs. Volkswagen got spanked really, really hard over that issue, you might remember. But unfortunately, changing the programming on the transmission, it's run by the engine computer, and there's really nothing we would be able to do

for it. Especially the way you describe it, it sounds like you've actually got internal damage in the transmission and really the only repair for it is either replacing it or rebuilding it. And truthfully, the best way is simply replacing it with a factory remanufactured transmission. They're less expensive than the brand new ones and they've been rebuilt to factory specifications. Well, I've been diagnosed with neuropathy, which caused the problem that I had in my foot, and therefore I've been advised to sell my car. Now, I do have a warranty on the car, and I looked at it recently, and it may have expired already, I don't know, but possibly what I should do is, by a reason, build transmission before I sell it, because if I sell it, anybody looking at a car, either yourself or another agency, Carvana, whoever, well, not so much Carvana, because they can't

drive the car, I guess, before they make a decision. But others would have the same problem and say, you know, I'm not discount this car. So I guess what I have to say is what's least expensive for me. Bob, let me interrupt you and Rick, because I want to ask Rick a question. I have very little sympathy for some

of our environmental laws on the books. And I understand the reason for them and they're good laws. And we often have situations in some states where they still have inspections required. And

sometimes to fix an emission problem like with a catalytic converter can be extremely expensive and you've got an old car and it's not really worth spending the money. And so Rick used the term a legal mechanic. I want to ask Rick this question. If there were someone that were willing to do the work and even though it was a technical violation of emission loss, could it be done and would it be a relevably inexpensive procedure? In this situation, I don't think it would do any good because I think what he's describing is physical damage in the transmission versus an electronic programming error. Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt, Bob. Go ahead. Answer.

How many miles do you have on the car? About a little over 50,000. I bought it, made of 43 on it when I bought it. it had been a car used in in rentals and but it it it runs really very well otherwise it's been a good car and I'm really feeling badly that that happened to it but you know it's it's kind of a bitter pill but I may have to swallow it and I presume what will happen is it'll just discount the car price both they not yes but selling it to them, either you or someone else, they'll say, well, you know.

Well, Earl may not like this answer, but I'm gonna put it out there anyways because I have a little bit of evil in my heart, and so I'm gonna say it. I would go into a local Toyota dealership, and I would say, hey, this transmission's not shifting right. No, I don't know anything. All I know is it just doesn't shift right,

and let them replace it under warranty, because that car's under factory warranty for five years, 60,000 miles. I would just simply play dumb on it and say, no, it just started acting up, and it just doesn't shift right, and let them put a new transmission in it. Actually, they would put in a remand transmission from the factory under warranty. They would get you a rental car for however long it would take to get the job done a day or two, and let Toyota foot the bill for it. Rick, I love you.

I love you. You've got a little bit of the evil car dealer in you. Except for now you're on Rudyard. It's buyer beware. John, I'm going to delete this one. Let me tell you something. This goes on every day that one of the reasons the manufacturers get nervous is because a lot of car dealers do this all the time, and they watch closely, and work on the car dealer doesn't know.

I mean, you go into a dealership, and exactly as Rick described, Got a problem in the transmission. Can you fix this under warranty? Yes or no? I mean, you're not required to know what the dealer should know, and you're not required to disclose anything when you go into a dealership. So go and give it a shot and see what happens. And odds are what's going to happen is they're going to have a technician drive the car

and say, yeah, there's something going on here. He's going to hook up a scan tool, pull the codes. He's not going to find much of anything. And they're going to say, yeah, it needs a transmission, and they're going to order a transmission and install it. The old transmission will go back into this big, giant plastic box that they ship it in, and they'll send it back to the, it's kind of a sublet company that rebuilds the transmissions, and they'll use anything out of it they can to rebuild it and put it back up

and send it off to somebody else next, but it'll be all brand new again. And one last thing, Bob, don't bring it into my dealership. Or if you do, don't let Rick or, me know about it. He's a pseudonym. Because they call that plausible deniability when they come after me. So either go to my competitors. Otherwise, Earl will be buying union transmission. And the dealership will get paid by Toyota. Toyota will pay for the part. The dealership will get a profit on the part, even warranty. They still get money on the part. And they'll get paid to replace it. And the technician will get paid to replace it. And everybody's happy.

Until we get charged back. And Toyota will just write it off as part of their villains. And Rick and I know nothing. I don't know. I'm sorry. Bob Who? I just forgot the last three minutes. There's something wrong here.

I'm disappointed. I can't bring it to your agency because you always do great work for me, but I understand your position. And I will, I'll go to another Toyota dealer in the area. Act accordingly. you won't have a problem if you go to another dealer Earl might have been winking when he said that just Bob just use your judgment

I hope we answered your questions yeah you did ma'am thank you very very much it's always a joy to listen to your program which I do religiously every week thank you Bob thank you so much Bob that's a very good answer thank you thank you have a wonderful weekend ladies and gentlemen

where can you go to get free advice and well you didn't you haven't tuned into the comedy corner this is really Earl Stewart Toyota excuse me oh there I go okay I'm going to be banned from the show you've tuned into Earl Stewart on cars and I hope you stay with us Roadrunner Steve I apologize I see that I've just lost you again oh no and please if you'll just give us a third chance give us a call back maybe he's driving to fast. You can hear

that we are extremely busy this morning. Maybe an angle fell on him. We're going to go back, I think, to Stu. I see the lines are lit up again, but I'll interrupt Stu and we'll bring you back. Sue?

Steve on? He's gone. Okay. All right. Here's a text from David in New Jersey. I read yesterday that one third of, hey, Steve. Roadrunner, Steve, is back again. Yes. Steve, hi.

Good morning. Okay, two things. Yesterday, I was going to Walmart, and they had one of those electric car charges there. Yeah. And I walked over there, and I was looking at it. I guess it's a charging pump. Charge point.

It said 29% at $8. It was a Porsche, I believe. So I went in shopping. I'm in Walmart for like 20 minutes. And the Porsche is still charging. Who's going to wait around that long? Especially if you've got to get out of Florida during hurricane scene. Who's going to have the patience for that?

I can tell you something. It's bad enough. They don't have patience waiting 10 minutes to fill up a car with gas. It definitely takes a lot longer to charge the car. I'm learning a lot about it because I'm playing around with that Tesla so I've been using the charger and then we have chargers at our dealership so we kind of know how you do the settings and you can set things up to boot people off after a certain period of time you can set up to charge them whatever you want you can do it for free but charging while you're shopping at

Walmart is not really a good use of your time because you know if you spend 20 minutes in a Walmart or 30 minutes in a Walmart and you charge it you don't really pick up more than maybe a couple of miles of range on your car. Maybe that's all you need to get home, but it takes a while. I was just saying the time that I went in there, and this lady's sitting in a Porsche, I mean, you think it would have been done already. Maybe she's getting some work done on her phone.

Maybe Walmart does that on purpose, Steve, because they know they got you there. You can't leave to your car gets charged. You better buy some more. You might as well buy some stuff. Probably a conspiracy. I want to approach to Porsche, but I didn't want to get the lady in the car nervous to ask her, you know.

It was at 29. percent and it cost $8. So let's say if it was at 30 percent, that would have been the third of a way charge. So it would have came to what? Over like $40 for a full charge? Yeah, so the Walmart's market just jacking up the rate that they're charging. It's up to the business owner what they charge. Like we have ours said at, I think, $0.14 a kilowatt hour, which is the average of what we pay.

We're just trying to recoup it. But we have seen some there charging, you know, 80 cents a kilowatt hour. I didn't know that. You mean, I can charge anything I want. Anything you want. Oh, that's terrible. Oh, I opened up a can of worms here. You sure do, yeah.

You know he's not going to do that. And here's another thing I've seen yesterday. I always used to see this in New York. I was at my favorite dining place on Lake Worth Road and 57th Avenue. There's an auto nation over there? Well, in the parking lot of the restaurant, this guy had a sign five foot long two feet high, and it said a regal lemon on it.

Arico lemon. They got themselves a protester. They're getting picketed. I love it. I was in New York, and the guy would park his farm in front of the major dealership seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

It works. I mean, I actually had to bribe a customer one time. Yeah, I mean, you probably don't believe me, but it wasn't our fault, and the customer was mad, and they were walking around in front of our dealership with a big sign, and I... He wound like 120 bucks, so you reached in your pocket. Yeah, right.

I bribed him. I said, I'm sorry, even though we weren't wrong, but how much was he costing us to be out there, so I figured right or wrong, I got to get this guy to go home. So if you have the courage, I had another word in mind to stand out in front of a dealership with a sign because you have a problem, it'll work. That's a true story. When Earl walked out there, he goes, I'm going to go talk to him. And then me and my brother's looking at it.

We're like, what's going to happen? What is he doing? And he walked out there and we're looking through the window. And he reached in his pocket and hands him like a $100 bill. I'm like, oh, he's bribing him. Oh, okay. Whatever works. Whatever works.

Okay. And by the way, I've seen you's on YouTube. Oh, good. Good. How did I look? that. I don't know. He hesitated. You look great. That's the answer is you look great, Earl. You look young. Love your haircut.

Hey, Roadrunner, Steve. Everybody have a good and safe weekend. You too, ma'am. We really enjoy talking to you. Give us a call again. Sorry for the hold. You know, speaking of Tesla Consumer Report, well, they aren't real happy with. the safety features that have been dropped with the Tesla and if you pick up a consumer report you can read all about it but they are definitely not on consumer reports top status and it's an interesting read so take advantage

of that ladies and gentlemen www. your anonymous feedback.com if I'm talking fast it's because I have to it's 916 already and give us us a call 877 960 9060 ladies i'm still waiting for you to give us a call 50 dollars for the first two new lady callers now let's take advantage of the youtube if uh rick is ready for us we've got quite a few comments have been coming in um let's see here get back here this this is such a busy morning it's awesome this is fantastic let's see uh mark brian actually was mentioning he says He was attempting to negotiate a deal on a brand new 2020 hybrid accord that was still on the lot. I don't know why it wasn't sold yet, but a 2020 hybrid accord, Honda Accord.

They told him there were no incentives, and the dealer noted they had moved it into the final pay category. He said they're firm at MSRP and his questions were, would you have any concern? about buying a car that has sat at the dealership for almost two years and what does that final pay category what does that term mean oh that's easy that means it's so old that the incentive programs have expired on it and they they Honda sends the dealer a check and just says do whatever you want so his cost on the car is lowered by the amount of the incentive that's no longer available so so yeah they just basically well you know in normal circumstances I'd say steer clear

of that car, but in today's market, you should check it out. It could treat it like a used car. I've had that car checked out carefully because it's been there so long, but it could be a bargain. It might be there just because. Maybe it's purple. Well, yeah, it could have some equipment, maybe it's priced a little bit higher than it has some unpopular.

It could be damaged. There could be a chronic problem hidden. It technically would be covered under warranty. But I'd have a really good technician, go over the car, pay him $200, and you might get yourself a bargain. Today's market, anything you can get at a reasonable price is a steel, because you're paying too much money if you buy a new car today. But you can use that final payout in your approach because you can say you know that Honda sent them, who knows what it was, maybe $1,500, $2,500. He knows that their cost is less than the other cars on the lot.

And a salesman probably doesn't know what final payout is anyway, but that's what it is. The manager might. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'm going to give that number out again, 877-960-9960. And ladies, I'm still waiting for you to give us a call. Win yourself, $50, first two lady callers. And I want to take a moment to thank the guys behind the scene, and that's Michael and Jonathan. What a great job that they do.

And I want to thank our audience, too, for putting us on the map. This is just the show has reached an amazing, uh the successful level and it's because of our listeners i thank you 877 960 9960 we're going to go back to the phones and we're going to talk to bobby who's calling us from west palm beach hi good morning good morning bobby i have a i have a irritating problem with my air conditioner but first i want to tell the boss that uh rick answers his emails when people from the radio show right into him. So that's nice. Thank you. So the problem is I have an air conditioner that blows cool air and not cold air. It happens to be a Toyota. And I'm no expert on air

conditioners, but I sort of have diagnosed it down to something called an air conditioner control valve, which is sort of an interesting problem because Toyota won't sell the valve. They only sell the whole compressor, which, as you know, is a $1,500 part for fare. The control valve aftermarket is $50. And the reason why I can't just change it is because if you take the control valve out, you release all the refrigerant, and you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to reclaim it. And so I'm sort of stuck with not being able to fix.

the problem without just dumping the 134 out into the atmosphere. So I'm looking for some guidance. Well, I can give you some off the air. Exactly. That's what happened. Yeah. Rick, you got any legal ideas? Unfortunately, the best one I would say is

find an aftermarket shop and independent shop and see if they would replace that valve on it. As a dealership shop, we wouldn't be able to technically do that because our shop actually has a role that we won't put in parts

unless they're supplied by us through Toyota because then we can warranty the repair. But an independent mechanic might be able to get that switch for you and install it on the compressor. right but that's the irritating problem is that Toyota knows this valve goes bad that the chats that are out there sort of indicate that there's enough information they know this valve goes bad but they but they won't sell it independently

and most reputable independent repair shops say I'll try to repair a Toyota with a non-Toyota part and they don't want it they want Denzo parts and you can't buy it So Toyota is creating this problem, and it's very similar to the problem with variable valve timing that occurred a few years ago I had a problem, and the Toyota diagnosis was you've got to tear the engine apart and replace the sprocket when, in fact, it was an oil control valve. Again, a $5,000 repair was made for $250. And both of those are Toyota doing this. And it's making the people think that their air conditioner is bad, and it's not. It's not the air conditioner.

It's a part in the air conditioner. They can be easily replaced. I totally agree with you, and air conditioning oppressors is not the only place this happens, and it's not Toyota isn't the only manufacturer. All the manufacturers now from cost-effectiveness justification are making modules, and they don't sell the individual components of the, the module. I've had situations not with the air conditioning compressor, with larger modules of parts, conglomerations of parts. I've actually had parts fabricated because you can have

a part that would call it, well, that should cost $2.50. And you have to have a $1,000 module to replace it. I've actually had a situation where I I fabricated a part, I mean personally, but I had it sublet, and the part might have cost $2.50. I might have paid $25 to fabricate it instead of having to go for $200,000 to replace the component. But you're still caught with what the manufacturer says, you have to use our part, and the fabricated part

would not be considered a factory part. So you're caught between the rock and the heart place. Rick, you had a point. One of the most infamous ones that I know of was, I believe it was one particular model year of Camry. A linkage control on the air conditioning box that controlled the blend doors, a little plastic clip would break. You could not get that plastic clip separate. You had to buy the entire air conditioning box. And we actually would, in some cases, take another clip that was a wrong size.

shave it and modify it with razor blades to install it and repair the car for the customer that way. Yeah. You hit on an Achilles heel. That's something that the manufacturers, not just Toyota do, that really riles me. And someone should look at it like so many other things we talk about on the show and no one's looking at it. But it's hard for the customer because, one, we don't get to talk to the mechanics very often. So we don't really know what the store is. We've got to go search it out.

Exactly. But one last question for Rick, back to this AC compressor control valve, it looks to be a fairly simple repair and easy to get to. Is that his understanding of it? Relatively, yeah. Yeah, it just sort of, it has a little oak clamp that you undo and pull it out and put a new one in and then refill your air conditioning system. But that's something Toyota needs to do. They claim to be customer friendly, but they're not. And as always, buyer beware.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm shamefully, that's the case. And, you know, we talk about it. I guess what? Your call and talking about it on the air has some effect. Eventually, these things can be changed. The good news is way into the future, you know, you're getting more and more

efficiency and especially if we get into all electric vehicles there are going to be fewer and fewer moving parts and fewer and fewer parts to worry about but right now it is a shame to have to spend several hundred dollars to replace a component

when you had a 25 cent part that would fix it. It's just a shame. I know I said one last thing before but one last thing if you're ever looking for somewhere expand the show, maybe sometime, I don't know how you'd actually do it, but maybe have the callers call in and talk about some independent repair shops for different brands of vehicles that they've used and had success

with, and maybe you guys could keep a list of that or something like that, just so the listeners would have a way of finding shops, because that's a hard thing to do too, as hard as it is to get cars repairs to find a good and a good and dependable repair shops. great idea. We do this, but we don't keep a list of those, and we should, and there are shops out there. We sell but our used cars to a lot of independent shops, and we look for reliable, obviously, shops that do that. So there are really good technicians out there, and based on your suggestion, we're going to start keeping a list. And not only that, but you save a ton of money, because car dealers do charge more money. And a good independent,

Given the repair and the fact that it's something that they can address without the high-priced diagnostic equipment, given all those facts, you should have it repaired by an independent that knows what he's doing. And thank you. We will begin keeping that list. Thanks. I appreciate to help. Give us a call again. You know, I'd like to get back to Tesla just for a moment, and it's just mind-boggling to me that the safety features that have been dropped by the automakers is. I just can't, if any of you guys have a comment, I'd appreciate it.

But it affects the Model 3 sedans, and it also affects the Model Y, SUVs. And these safety features are truly important. We're talking about the FCW, and that's the forward, the forward, what, FCD, Rick, help me out. Forward collision warning? Thank you so much. That's why Rick's here. He's got all the answers. So anyway, ladies and gentlemen, you know, you wouldn't expect that from Tesla.

It's rated a pretty safe, well, the other vehicles are rated pretty safe. So A77, Jonathan, do we have time for more calls? Ladies and gentlemen, we're finished with our calls. We're going to go to Stu, who hasn't had a chance to mention so many texts that he's sitting on. That's okay. We have one here. Who sent this? I don't have a name on it

But it says good morning I need your help opinion and guidance Chip shortage has made car buying difficult I was in dealership last weekend And didn't buy a car Waited for a period of time Because the salesperson had a conflicting appointment Overlapped with his appointment schedule

Finally a salesperson came out Listened to the sales pitch And he said he'd think about it He picked up on an attitude, chaos and all that So he has a series of questions First one is what day in the week Is good to go and not wait or when dealers are not so busy? Sunday. Sunday, if they're open on Sunday in the

morning. Or if that doesn't work, if they don't open, weekdays early in the morning, right when they open. If you get the most dealers open around 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, and they don't have a lot of customers then. What do you do if the dealer does not honor the Costco pricing? You report them to Costco and find another dealer. Be sure to register on the website for Costco, your membership number, your name. And so they know who you are and where you're going, and then you got them, because if the dealer reneges, the dealer doesn't meet the commitments that Costco requires, you're on record. You go back to Costco. They will call. They will spank the dealer, and if the dealer doesn't make things

right, they'll cancel them as a Costco dealer. That is correct. Next question is, do I need to buy gap insurance? You don't need to, but if you are carrying any equity over from your prior purchase, a financing deal, or if you don't put a lot of money down, it is advisable because it's a worthwhile thing. In most case, it's around $500, $600, $800. And if you had a total loss, it will protect you, you'll be able to be made whole after the insurance company buys out your car. So if you're making a big down payment or you have a big fact trade in, you don't have it. As long as you're going to have equity in the vehicle, look at it this way. But if you go on the string if you go say if you put no money down on a lease or you carry over equity from the

other exactly you but equity in the car you don't need gap insurance okay and then the last question is is it better to lease during because of the chip shortage that's a single most popular question I get no it isn't better to lease during the chip shortage leasing to the sophisticated buyer leaser is a viable option. Sometimes it's actually a preferable option, but it's so far more complicated and so far easier for the dealer to take advantage of you. I use the rule of thumb. When in doubt, buy, don't lease. But if you know what you're doing, you can get a good value in a lease. Yep. All right. This is from David in New Jersey. He said, I read yesterday that a third of the five percent rise in inflation is due to used and new car prices. If this is the case, then the inflation

we see is temporary. What's your take, Earl? I think that's a great observation. I didn't know it was a third. If you're right. I read the same thing. Yeah, it makes me feel better. You know, last year, it was toilet paper this year. It's microchips. Frankly, I'm glad we have enough toilet paper, but I'm not buying a car, so. But at any rate, I think that it would be good for our economy to think that it was a third in the car prices, because that will be gone. That will evaporate. You've seen it, I've seen it. I mean, the longer, the older you are, the more you've seen it, everything changes. And we have a shortage of microchips now. Pretty soon we're going to have too many microchips. And pretty soon we're going to have too many

cars. And if you can wait a few months, you can get a heck of a deal on a car because their microchips are going to be all caught up and the manufacturers always overdo it. And there'll be too many Chevroletes, too many Toyotas, too many Hondas, and the dealers will be begging for business and they'll be slashing prices. So yeah, I hope you're right that this whole inflation thing is a third based on automobile. That's a pretty big impact, yeah. Eric, did you have something? Actually, Donovan Lewis just came in. He's usually sounds pretty knowledgeable here, but he says,

Tesla is not removing those safety features. They are transiting to a camera-based system from radar-based. The way the NHTSA classifies those safety features, it requires radar for the wording. Depth sensing cameras that Tesla's have can do the same thing as radar, but it'll take time for the wording from the government to catch up. So, in other words, the safety features will still be there. They'll still operate properly.

Using a different technology. It's simply using a different technology, and they can't say they have that system because it has radar in it, which they're no longer used radar. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to turn this into a commercial for Tesla. Elon. Attention, Elon Musk. If you're listening, you should sue the United States government, sue the NHTSA. because they're defaming you.

And if that's true, I don't know, I haven't verified it, but if that is true, then you're costing Tesla, and Tesla's stockholders, a lot of money in defamation. What is the YouTuber's name? Donovan Lewis. Hey, Donovan, thank you for that information. The article that I have, all they mentioned, and maybe if somebody that's going after Tesla,

I don't know, but it just got, my attention, but thanks for clearing that up. I appreciate that. Don't you just love our listeners, YouTube, text, callers, everything. Yeah, this is like the Encyclopedia Britannica we got. We got it all. Yes.

Greatest in the world. Boy, that age of me, doesn't it? I should have said Google. What do you was just thinking that? Bigfoot, Alta Vista. Can you hear the millennials out there? The Encyclopedia, what hell is that?

Can you imagine? I don't even have to close my eyes. I can see it in my living room. What's an encyclopedia? I made it available for most. I had the world book encyclopedia. It was the greatest gift you ever got me. I had the whole set and I read the whole damn thing. And all you little

young people out there, people used to go door and they knock on your door and you come to the door and they say hi, I'm from Encyclopedia Britannica. And look what I can do for you. And then you would say, well, come on in. You open the door. The stranger would come in. wearing a suit, sit in the living room, and show you his wares.

What an amazing time. And then you'd only have to pay $25 a month for the rest of your life. Exactly. And then you had a set of encyclopedias in 20 years, yeah. Yeah, but you had the ability to put that right in front of your children, so you could expand on their education right there in your home. I think we're digressing. We have.

Okay, we're doing a commercial for the Encyclopedia Britannica. Back to Stu. We'll wrap this up real quick. After watching your mystery shop in Napleton's North Palm Hyundai, I just have one question. Actually, they have two questions. How do dealers like this ever sell a car? Second question, are customers really that's stupid? And it's a little harsh, but it's more of a lack of education.

It's an ignorance, but that's why we're here. See, that's what I'm being politically correct, I have to be very careful about talking about victims. but the reality is there are people out there that can't fend for themselves and they need our help and they're good people, they're not bad people, just because you're not prepared. I mean, if you don't speak English very well, you can be the smartest person on the world. Can you imagine being in a foreign country? You live in India and you go into a car dealership in New Delhi and you want to buy a vehicle. They don't speak English, you don't speak Indian, and what are you going to do?

I mean, you're going to fend for yourself. and that Indian salesperson, if he's not honest and moral, he's going to take advantage of you. So we have a lot of people in this country whose English is not their first language. We have elderly people that, I'm sorry, you get to be a certain age, you're not as sharp as you were when you're 25. There I've said it. I'm not as sharp as I was when I was 25. I'm a more honest. Isn't it amazing?

I'm not a sharp. It just comes with time. we have a great mystery shopping report coming up from Stu of it's Carl's Buick I believe do you have more texts I do okay I have anonymous feedback great okay this one says what would it take for the Florida legislature to regulate dealer fees it would be the collapse of car dealer political power

exactly I couldn't say it better myself it's all the political action committees think about the cumulative wealth of the auto dealers. I believe they're about the largest employer. And car dealers make a ton of money. I mean, I'm talking, car dealer provis that today are obscenely high. And they have deep pockets, and they get the Attorney General elected, they get the state senators, they get the state congressmen, they get the, any elected official in the state any state is reliant on car dealers.

So it's not going to happen as long as they have that political power. They're so organized. FADA and in every other state, they're state organizations. It's a lobby. It's like the NRA. They're almost as organized as trial lawyers. Trial lawyers still lead the

PAC and money. Trial lawyers are, and you see the commercials, right? I mean, these trial lawyers have got deep pockets. And did you know that to be a trial lawyer that you have to give your American Express card number and an authority to renew it if you're a trial lawyer so they can take their annual required contribution as a member of the trial lawyers association the lobbying group and so they have

hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and if you try to pass a law against trial lawyers, forget about it. Can't be done. A little bit like the National Rifle Association. A little bit like big insurance, or a big auto. Money's where's that? That's right. Is that compared with the mafia?

Well, they behave in similar ways. We'll get two more and we'll get through them real quick. Good morning. The following questions are for Rick. There is a YouTuber by the name of the car care nut. He claims to be a Toyota master diagnostic technician. He says not to do oil changes according to the owner's manual and to do them every six months, every 5,000 miles. He says going by owner's manual, especially the ones that say 12 months or 10K, is bad in the long run and

will cause damage to the engine and oil consumption. Rick, you say go by the owner's manual for oil changes. So who is correct? I think this guy sounds like a nut. Yeah, he is a car. The car care nut says the following for new car. Change the oil filter 1,000, six months from purchase, 5,000 six months. Okay, he's re-ran on. Anyway, Rick, is he right or wrong? Sounds to me like he owns stock in big oil. Okay, there you go. He wants fossil fuel. I'll Google him and check him out, but he sounds like a real nut to me. That's a job. The last one, and this is for Rick also probably, does the on-off switch, meaning the start-stop? switch, when you're at the light, when it cuts off the engine.

Does it actually save gas on new cars where it shuts off the engine at stoplights? GM has decided to give you a $50 credit when you buy their big SUVs like Escalade for $50. It saves them a chip. I would gladly play $50 from moving this dumb idea in the first place. And I'm all about saving fuel, but I don't like that. I don't like that start-stop. No, I don't know. You're going to save a few pennies in fuel, but

there is a lifespan they call it where a point where you are supposed to replace the battery and the starter motor and they are somewhere in a neighborhood of about double the price

of the normal battery and starter motor which would have a normal lifespan but there is actually a maintenance interval when those batteries and starters are recommended to be replaced by Toyota being used because it's constantly turning on and off.

Wow. It's ridiculous. And you just heard the rest of the story from Rick Kearney. I didn't know that. The unfortunate part is, unlike some systems on Toyotas, if you want to turn that feature off on your car, there's a button you have to push, but every time you get in the car and start it up,

you have to push that button to turn that feature off. Instead of a way to turn it off and leave it deactivated. That's absolutely awful. You have to push a button. It's horrible. Yeah, but it's, First world problems. It's a pain in the neck where you have to constantly think about that

and do it every time you get in the car. It is. No, it is. It's an annoyance. You could see, you could, most of the complaints we have about cars, we could chalk up to first world problems, but they are annoyances, and design is so important in a car. Yeah, very much so. Ladies and gentlemen, I see by the clock that we do need to get to the mystery shopping report from Carl's Buick,

and I'm going to turn it over to the Master of Ceremony. M.C. Earl. Mr. Stewart. Ed McMahon. Mystery shop of Carl's Buick. They've been around for a long time. I'm not sure how long, but in July of 2019, we mystery shop Carl's Buick for advertising over 25% off.

I know, new Buick, at that time was 2019, Buick Encore. If you don't remember how that turned out, I'm sure you can guess that it was a bait and ad and our mystery shopper, Agent Thunder, didn't get 25% off. That's hard to do, legitimately. Looking back on all mystery shops, it looks like Carl's Buick has failed a few times. Before the 25% off ad, they failed one of our Takata tests. Before that, in 2016, they ran another bait and switch ad and used unobtainable rebates

to come up with the undoable price. You know, you've got to be a farmer, you've got to be a college graduate, it at the same time you've got to be a veteran, all that kind of nonsense. Of course, in all three cases, Carl's Buick padded their silver prizes with bogus hidden fees. So they didn't do too well in the past. It's kind of funny how Carl's Buick flies under the radar, to be sure, it's not a big dealership, far from big. But they employ some of the same tactics that we see dealers like Napleton and Grico doing. Car dealers like Arrigo, Napleson, the Graco's, and Machillo.

give all the glory of the bad boys, famous bad boys, the South Florida. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of low-key car dealers, putting the same to safety practices to work. And cumulatively, nationwide, the small dealers sell more cars. I mean, there's just thousands and thousands and thousands of car dealers. Some of them only sell 50 cars a month, and you think that they weren't all that important, but they are if you add it all together. We just don't pay that much attention because they don't sell that many cars.

They don't impact the lives of as many consumers as a larger dealers do within a neighborhood. Yeah, just being an individual dealer. Exactly. But they still deserve to be called out when they behave badly. So that's what we're doing. We're going to see if they should be called out, Carl Spuick, and Stewart, Martin County. Our attention was called to Carl's Beulich this time because they ran another ad featuring a big discount. And, Scott, dealers out there beware, you run a too good to be true ad, we're going to visit you.

We will be knocking on your door. So, go ahead, run the crazy ad, but you're just asking for us to knock. We'll be there. Look over your shoulder. This kind of ad is rare these days due to the inventory crunch. No one has cars to sell. Trust me. Dealers are stocking as little as 10% of what they normally keep when they're low.

lots. When supply goes down, prices go up, economics 101. And they should to a point, but car dealers are very resourceful and is capitalized on the inventory situation to justify price couching. For the first time in history, they can actually rationalize and justify their market adjustment addendums by citing the national vehicle's shortage. Finally, after lying to you about this, they have a pandemic situation. It's like a clock is right twice a day type of thing. And they're just so excited because they can actually tell the truth that we're, you know, we're going to have to charge a lot of money for this car. This is why a car ad featuring a big discount is so unusual.

I mean, we figured this has got to be a lie. We had to check it out. So we called up Agent Lightning, our female sharper. I mean, thank God for Agent Lightning. We're finally doing what we should have done a long time ago, is sure. showing the female view of life out there among car dealers. Okay, speaking of first person is if I am Agent Lightning. Before heading up to Stewart, Florida, I found an ad for a new 2021 Buick Enclave on tricurl.com.

What an unusual name website, tricarles.com. Interesting. An unusual name for a car dealer website that offered $5,050 discount, that's a big one, off MSRP. That's huge. MSRP was 53-185. Okay, I'm Agent Lightning. I'm female. I took my daughter along for the mission

because she did such a great job a couple of weeks ago. Really good job at H. Greg Nissan helping me with my cover story as I, you know, went in as a secret agent. We walked in the showroom at 12.40 p.m., greeted by a woman near the front door. Oh, it's good, woman on woman.

She asked us what it was brought us in. I said, I had seen some good offers for new cars on their website. She asked me if I was communicating with anyone from the dealership online. And I responded that I had not. The one picked up a phone, pressed a button, and loudly paid for a salesperson or the intercom. Now, that's indicative of the old two-tier pricing. And many dealerships for many years, and even today, they had your Internet price, and you have you walk in the door price

and they want to be sure when you come in that you don't have the one price if they're going to give you the other price if you know what I mean. We waited for a minute and then Bram, am I getting him per? Abraham. I think it's short for like Ibrahim or Abraham.

It's French. I googled it and I got the pronunciation. Brian. Brian. Came I came over to say hello. I showed him the ad for the Brea Conclave and asked if it was still available. He said he could check, then let us over to a desk, search his computer.

He told me a now familiar story. Here we go. The car business is crazy these days. There are no cars because there's no microchips. Use cars and new car prices are at all-time minds, and they're very close. As I said earlier, you might be thinking twice about buying the used car when you could be buying the new car for pretty close to that price. Never thought I'd have to say that, but it's true. Brian found the

Engleys listing on his computer happily reported that it was in stock and available. He said I was lucky they only had 30 or so new cars in stock so a miracle that we got the car that we advertised. It's a miracle that any car dealer has the car that he ever does. At normal times it's a miracle.

Yeah, normally. He went on to ask me for all my personal information, made copies of my driver's license, and insurance cards. When he was done, he led me and my daughter outside to find the enclave. So nice to be able to lick my fingers when I turn the page because I don't have my mask.

You're not supposed to. You should see him with a rack of ribs in front of it. I do see some barbecue sauce fingerprints over there on that. It wasn't hard to find. A lot was small and I could easily see their entire deplete of stock of new cars. There was no addendum. Hmm. No addendum on the vehicle. Nor was there a Menoni label.

It was lying on the back seat. That's sloppy. But I have to say it's not uncommon. Legally, they're supposed to be on the car. This was in the back seat. It shouldn't happen. That's just the way it is. I mean, I'm sorry to report.

Where am I here? Yeah. I checked in the van matched. Something you should always do. When you buy a car, good times, bad times. Always check to Minroni and check to VIN and be sure that the car that you're responding to, maybe by advertisement, that they're one of the same. Brian was good on his test drive. I explained all the features engaging with me and my daughter appropriately.

We drove for over three miles. That's a fair size test drive. Brian encouraged me to accelerate, hard brake, hard accelerate, as is that, take aggressive turns. you want me to really get the feel for the enclave, kind of like the way we came to the radio show, Nancy and I, this morning. A lot of fun. A lot of fun. It's fun for me, not for Nancy.

At any rate, that's a good test drive, by the way. You should do that safely when you're buying a new car or used car. Test drive it in a manner that you drive. If you're a negative driver, drive the car aggressively. Just don't have some in the car that doesn't like that. That's a good point. I wondered why Nancy was sweating when she came in this morning. No, exactly.

I'm pretty seasoned. When we pulled back in the dealership parking lot, Bram asked me if I like it, and if I'd be interested in taking it home today, you know, trial close, they call it. I said I'd love to see some numbers so I could determine if it'll fit into our budget. We walked back inside. Bram told me that I could get 0% financing, but then the price would come up. He said, I would need to qualify credit-wise for the zero percent. Nice of him to tell you that.

Oftentimes, people don't tell you that. But either way, it is a great deal, although he said zero percent was better if I kept the car through the whole term. That's kind of true. I mean, there's an element of truth in that. Bram offered my daughter and I bottles of water, excused himself to get numbers from his manager. Unless the five minutes, Bram was back with a worksheet. The market value selling price was MSRP, 53, 185. So the market value was supposed to be the same as the MSRP.

And we know that that is about right, and about two-thirds of the cars these days. That's how high the prices are. They took off a $5,050 rebate, and the adjusted price was what I saw in the end. 43,135. Wow. Then they, here we go. Then they added $7.99 for Carl's advanced environmental protection. Okay.

Five years inside now. And $466 for a three-year maintenance plan. Next to the maintenance was optional. Okay. Disclosure. It was handwritten in parentheses. But nevertheless, some disclosure. Let's see what happens later on.

The total purchase came to $49,400. Then came more ads. This is SOP with car dealers, unfortunately. $150 for electronic filing fee, another word for hidden fee, dealer fee. And $699 dealer fee, another word for hidden fee. Out the door, $53,651. Brian drew the more parentheses around the prices for the car's advanced environmental protection and the maintenance plans, and he said that these were optional.

Now, that's good, and frankly, quite surprising that he would say that verbally. Now you have a double disclosure, fine print, and then verbal. That's good. Kudos to Brian. And could be deducted from the price, but he strongly recommended I take them different value. That's okay. We call that puffery. Selling.

Selling, yeah. And that's what people pay their salespeople to do, puff. I mean, you know. These days, you know. I'll probably have a lot of puffing going on. I could really digress and have fun with that, but we don't have time. On the left side of the worksheet, there were some payments and down payment options. Bram said the payments were all guesses, since I had run my credit, another logical and good disclosure.

He said he believed the payments on the worksheet were based on 4.9%. He said zero earlier. But I think that was just careless. No, I think because he used the price, the cash version used, that the whatever rebate they had, so you couldn't use zero percent unless you raise the price. Okay. So everything exceptionally legitimate up to this point and surprisingly. I asked him what he could do about the price.

I said that with the extra packages and fees, with the extra packages of fees, I thought I was going to get what wasn't what I was getting. The price I thought I was going to get wasn't what I was getting. Exactly. Right. That was a mouthful. I didn't write this, folks. It was written by my son. When it's bad, he blames me.

Brian said there was no room to negotiate and that the price was the price. But he reminded me that I did not have to take the environmental or maintenance. I had a triple disclosure. I mean, I actually have tears in my eyes because Brian is truly a good soul. I mean, he's a moral guy. And that was really unusual. and honest. I thanked him for his time and said I would discuss it with my family and get back to him. So here we are. Other than the unwanted items and hidden fees, Carl's Buick and Stewart, Martin County, Florida, honored the ad price.

Folks. Well, that's kind of like the Mrs. Lincoln quite other than the unwanted items. That you like to play, yeah. It was nice of Brian to tell Agent Lightning that the extra charges were optional. The softest sell of unwanted dealer and sold in substance we've ever seen. However, this was a big profit for Carl's and a big fat commission for Brian. Okay, so what? I mean, I have nothing against people making a profit. I think if you do your moral duty of disclosure and honesty, and then you leave the decision of the consumer, a salesman, a car dealer is done all they should do.

The $5,050 discount was a factory rebate. Carl's discounted the vehicle exactly $0,000, and that's because of the real situation, microchip shortage, high demand, low supply, the marketplace establishes the price and full honest transparency and disclosure. That's the reason I say, don't buy a car today unless you have to,

because even if you get an honest deal, you're going to be paying a lot of money. don't buy a newer used car today unless you have to so here I am the recovering car dealer committing financial suicide on the air he does it every week the price

the $5,000 a $50 discount was a factory rate okay I just said that didn't I Carl's discount the entire vehicle $0 blah blah blah they're we got to vote right and I I got to tell you that I'm impressed.

I don't want to prejudice the votes. Yeah, don't, don't influence. We're going to have to move real fast. Let's do the votes. We have some coming in. Nothing on Facebook yet. So Bob gives a B minus. Mark gives them a B plus.

Where my head was, I was leaning towards like a B-ish sort of grade. I know that he did a lot of disclosure. I did not like how they pre-printed the environmental and the maintenance plan on the buyer's order. ahead of time kind of is assuming the sale so I'm going to lower mine down to a C but I do think it was a good experience I just think that they didn't put the addendum on the car that's great but they put it on the buyer's order and that's a mark lower for me and uh there we go okay that's the only great I have so far okay I am going to give them a B minus they honored the ad music to my years but for Carl's Buick I get them a B minus Rick

Negan with an A, Wayne with an A, Mark Anderson B, B, Brough Scientist C, Mark with a B plus Tom with a C, and me, I'm giving them a B plus. I think they did great. Earl? I'm going to give them a A. Okay, ladies and gentlemen. There it is. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to Earl Stewart on cars. We enjoyed your company. We hope We not only entertain you, but educated you. Stay tuned. Next week at the same time, we'll be right here.

Saturday morning at 8 a.m. Bye-bye, everybody. Have a great weekend. Oh,