Earl Stewart on Cars - 06.13.2020 - Your Calls, Texts, and Mystery Shop of H.Greg Nissan Delray

Episode Date: June 13, 2020

Earl answers various caller questions and responds to incoming text messages. Agent Thunder visits H.Greg Nissan in Delray Beach to see if he can purchase a new Nissan Sentra and test the dealer's advertised one price policy. 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. “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. The Rick can't answer about the mechanics or electronics of your car. Also with us is my son, Stu Stewart, our LinkedIn, space through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Periscope. Stu is also the Spymaster Director of our Mystery Shopping Report. He dispatches our secret shopper weekly to an unsuspecting self-forwarded dealership. And now, on with the show.

Well, good morning, folks. This is a live Earl Stewart. You just heard my recording introduction. Kind of summarizes everything. I got anonymous feedback. I think it was last week saying that my introduction was too long, so... I just timed it. Oh, yeah.

It's 30 seconds. Well, I think you were talking about me when I come on after my live introduction. We covered everything there. I think that I always want to fill in the new folks, and hopefully we're building the audience. I think we're growing because I can certainly see it geographically. I mean, we're international, and so we're improving our new listeners. We like more and more. Nancy Stewart has done an amazing job of increasing our fees.

female audience. And so when I kind of overdo it with the, what we, you already know, the regular listeners, I got to remember that you're listening every week and you're going to be bored to death when I keep talking about the same thing. But I got to touch on the high points and I talk, I have to say something about the mystery shopping report because it's, it's unique. And if you've never listened to the show before, it's been a long time. Every week we do a mystery shopping report. It's really kind of cool. We go into a car dealership or tend to buy or lease a car, and we just tell you exactly what happens.

We don't pull any punches. We name names. We name dealerships. Some of the dealers are pretty good. We score on the curve. We grade every mystery shopping report, and we can't do an absolute grading system because everybody would probably flunk.

For example, every car dealership charges a hidden fee. So we can't flunk everybody. We have to have a recommended list. That we tell you, buyer beware, even on our dealer recommended list. So, mystery shopping report, you'll love it. It'll be at the end of the show. I did an extra Mr. Shopping Report today. I'll just touch on this briefly.

It goes to show you how abusive even the big guys are. We mystery shopped on the telephone, Auto Nation Lexus. It's called Palm Beach Lexus. It's owned by Auto Nation. And it was a used car ad, a local online ad. and we missed to shopped them on the telephone. Come to find out the used car they're advertising is not in Palm Beach.

It's not at Palm Beach Lexus. It's not in Florida. It's in Texas. So here they're advertising good prices on a used car that I suppose if you want to drive to Texas you could buy it or maybe you could

pay $1,000 to have a transport. I don't know. But that's an example of the things we find out. And the fact that a large company Auto Nation. I mean, they're traded on the New York Stock Exchange. They're publicly owned. They have some,

you know, theoretically Michael Jackson, the former CEO. He's still a spokesperson, and I think he's on the board of directors. Respected people. But how do these car dealers get away with what they do? That's why this show exists,

and that's why you're listening to Earl Stewart on Cars to help you. I'm going to also remind you, and then I'm going to introduce Rick Kearney. He's sitting to my right. Rick is a certified master diagnostic technician. So it's not all about buying cars and leasing cars. It's exciting out there to go into a car dealer service department too.

Sometimes you find out that they're overcharging you. They all charge dealer fees. Did you know that? When you buy service in a car dealership, they have a smaller version of the old hidden fee. They're hidden fees at the bottom of the service. and it's a percentage of whatever you paid. So if you had a $1,000 bill, it'll probably be about $100, maybe $200.

It's a small bill. It might just be $5 or $6, but it's for nothing. It's add to the bottom. It will be sundry supplies. I will make up a name like hazardous waste disposal fee. So you've got to watch out for that. The main thing you have to watch out for, and I'm going to turn it over to Rick, and he can tell you more detail, is selling you something that you don't need.

cars are so reliable today, they require so little maintenance, many times on a new car, the maintenance is free for a couple of years. So what's the car dealer going to sell you at the service drive? Well, he'll figure out something. So Rick Kearney, if you have any questions on cars, tell them how to reach you, Rick. I'm right here. It's 800, 877-960, 9960, or you can text us, 772-497. 6530. We're on YouTube on Earl on cars and also the Earl Stewart Toyota YouTube page.

We got Facebook. We got anonymous feedback. Your anonymous feedback.com. So there's all kinds of ways to get hold of us here. Yeah. You know, if I were listening and I wasn't on the business, one of the things that I think about all the time is this red light that so often pops up on your dashboard. and it says, check engine, scary. Talk about that a little bit. Well, it's kind of your car's way of communicating to you. There's a problem. The problem is it can only say check engine, and it really can't give you a definition.

Is it something as major as a sensor or an activator in the engine, something going wrong with the car? Or is it just as simple as being a loose gas cap? Do all the manufacturers use that terminology, check engine that seems like it's a standard phrase in the industry pretty much they've they've gotten to the standardized thing some of them would say service engine soon but they got away from that because service engine sounds more like just a maintenance thing yeah and most cars now also have a maintenance light that will come on that it's timed to come on about every 5,000 miles or

whatever it's set for for the manufacturer yeah to tell you when it's time to bring your car in for normal, regular, factory-recommended services. To me, the biggest stupid thing about the check engine light is it can be anywhere from a loose gas cap, which it is loose gas cap. About 75, 80% of the time is a loose gas cap. It can be that, so all you have to do is tighten the gas cap. You don't have to pay anybody.

You don't have to go to the service department. Tighten your own gas cap. But it also might be something very serious. something so serious that would be safety related or certainly your engine or your transmission of very expensive repair, meaning that either you don't have to worry about it at all or it's so serious that you're allowed to be trapped

on the Pennsylvania Turnpike at 2 o'clock in the morning. So check engine light tells you nothing about the severity of the problem. Right. But here's a glimpse into the future. Now, this is something that is starting right now within the last two years. it's a test program that all the manufacturers are working on and probably within the next three to four years

this will be standard on all the cars when your car's check engine light comes on the information that it has will be sent by cellular signal to the manufacturer then they will be able to determine is this an important issue or something minor and if it's something as simple as your gas caps loose

you can all of a sudden receive a text message says your car's check engine light has been illuminated we have determined that your fuel cap is loose please tighten it at your earliest convenience and we will clear the code remotely have a nice day that is amazing I love it I didn't know that

when can we expect that do you think right now because it's already out on some of our cars however it's because people are concerned about privacy issues as well. It's a voluntary type thing where you have to volunteer to allow this system to read that information and send that information to Toyota and then they will send you the text messages out to you. So you have to buy the car first and then fill out the information form, privacy

release, and you're good to go. Right. That's fantastic. And the cool part is if it is something a really major that's going on something important in the car, it can send you an alert and say, hey, a text message. It says, your check engine light is on. It is a serious situation. Please go to the nearest dealership and here's where it's

located. Because they'll be able to determine your location and get you to the nearest dealership or offer to send a tow truck to you. Well, see, I told you, Rick Hurney knows a lot. He knows more than I do. And I'm a Toyota dealer. And I didn't even know that that was available.

So if it's available in Toyota, it's probably available in a lot of other makes. Absolutely. And it's hot off the press. It just happened, probably the 2020 models. And we encourage you to take that into consideration. That's been one of my pet peeves for as long as I can remember. I hate the check engine light. And I thought it was so stupid.

But now, finally, they fixed it. Yeah. Also, you can use apps like right now currently on a lot of Toyota models. At a glance, you could be in your house, and you can see the tire pressure in each one of your tires. Yeah. You say you're a fuel level. I think you have that in your car.

Yeah, and the Lexus has had that, but not with regard to the check engine. I'm sure they do now, and I'm sure a lot of other models. That voice you just heard by the way is my son, Stu Stewart, for you newbies, everybody else knows him. And Stu is our spymaster general. He is in charge of our covert operation, the mystery shopping report.

And we're starting to get a little of attention of the, of the, salespeople. We've had two texts, anonymous feedback and another posting on our YouTube from two salespeople at Ed Morris Honda. We shopped Edmors Honda a couple weeks ago, and we had the salesperson we shopped, actually, sent us a feedback on the posting. So we'll talk about that later on the show. Stu dispenses agent thunder or agent whoever the agent is that goes out and he picks a dealership

that we shop and tell us a little bit about that Stu. Every week and this has been going on let me rewind a second I joined the show I think four years ago or five years ago Nancy and Earl have been doing it for 17 years but I've been doing the mystery shopping report for those whole

17 years I was just behind the scenes I was on the show we're afraid for your safety yeah well I was no the truth is I was just scared to be on the radio. And even when I came in the studio, I was silent for about a year. You were a mere child. I was a child. I was only 40-something years old.

Yeah, so it's pretty unbelievable that for 17 years that we're able to keep delivering fresh content and new reports. And we have, we revisit dealerships that we've been to because things change. Certainly things have changed over 17 years. So it never gets old. occasionally, I start to feel it gets a little stale sometimes. Like, I, we got the same sort of thing going on. And then suddenly our world changed this year, and we just, such a shock to the car dealer body

that new behaviors began to emerge. And that was just ripe pickings for us to investigate. So it's exciting now, again, as always. And, yeah, so basically we do a little research during the week. We typically look for any ads that jump out of us that look too good to be true, the sort of thing that you might find on ain't going to happen.com. And we have a group of mystery shoppers, but we stick with the best. And so usually you're going to hear Agent Thunder.

The last era of Mystery Shopping, we had Agent X, who was just an extraordinary, I want to say he was a genius. Fearless, totally fearless. Clearly, one of the most interesting people we've ever met. And Agent Thunder is filling those shoes really well. And so we've been on a tear now in the last two months looking at these COVID-19 related ads. What happens when the manufacturers jumped in there with a bunch of support for the card business, which was really hit hard really in March and April, a lot of incentives, a lot of devices to draw consumers into the showrooms. Yeah, we learn new tricks every week.

I've been doing this for 50 plus years, meaning I've been a car dealer for that long. And I like to say I know all the tricks of the trade. I don't. I mean, to be honest with you, I find out new things. The thing on the other nation mystery shop on the telephone, I cannot believe. We've had people advertise cars that were not in the Del Rey dealership, but in the Miami dealership. I've never had a dealership advertise a car that you had to go. to Texas you get so never that's an example it's a first time

oh yeah two weeks ago we had a who was it it was up in Fort Pierce gosh I can't remember the dealership but they said yeah that's in our sister store up in northern Florida and no we can't get the car for you well it's before I introduce Nancy Stewart my co-host and a partner in crime for 17 years on the show I had something I wanted to mention this is kind of a little bit off the subject, but we are in a huge pandemic crisis. I don't even like to read the paper or watch TV anymore. You know all the bad news. We're one of the states where the COVID virus is increasing in intensity, more hospitalizations, more testing positives, and there's about

four or five other states, maybe more than that. A lot of people don't have jobs. A lot of people are furloughed. Hopefully they'll have the job. Huge number of people on unemployment. There's something that inside secret that car dealers have. They don't talk about that much. Car dealers pay, they call them bird dogs, what they are, referral fees. So, wherever you are in the United States of the world, if you have a car dealership that you trust, that you recommend that you can say, I know Charlie, the salesperson, he'll take good care. If you refer to a car dealership, they will pay you a fee. Whether you need to do it a lot, you can earn several hundred dollars a month if you work hard,

you refer your friend who wants to buy a car to a car dealership that you trust. And you're doing them a favor, right? And the car dealer, you check ahead of time, you call the car dealership, say, I have someone who wants to buy a car, I'm going to send them in. If I send them in, how much will you pay me? A typical would be, what's to $50, $100, $100,000. $50 to $100,000, yeah. $100. So call the dealership, be sure you do that, give them your name, before you give them the prospective buyer.

Oh, is it up front? Up front. If the prospective buyer goes in and buys a car and then you call them up and say, hey, I refer to them. You don't get your $100 or your $150 or whatever it is. Each dealership has a different amount they pay. But think about it. You're doing your friends in favor. You send them to a car dealership.

Maybe you love Ed Morsanda. Maybe you love Schumacher-Bulik. If you have somebody that you can trust and you have a salesperson there that's reliable, do the dealership of favor, do your friend of favor, and do yourself a favor, and pick up a referral fee. All car dealerships do this. I just want to say that. I added my notes of things to say.

I do have to add a caveat to that. It's not permitted in all states in the United States. In some states, you can't do that. I didn't know. Florida, it's completely, it's legal and encouraged. But I found that in our 20 group, which is a group of Toyota dealers that get together. And I can't tell you how many,

There are several in there where that's not allowed by law. I got you. Okay. Okay. You got Nancy, the love of my life, my partner in crime. That's so sweet. I'm going to call you skinny. Put up with me for a long, long time.

Yeah, skinny. Skinnyer than you've ever been. Thank you. Hey, folks, I'd discuss my talents with you, but the show is not that long. So, we're going to move into something a little more serious. I mentioned last week, Attorney General Ashley Moody. guess what we can't not do this alone attorney general and you know she is put in she has been put into a position of authority she can be so helpful to all of us she's the protector of the consumer the consumer from the scams and and all these dangerous ads that are in the newspaper and taking advantage of so many people that

buying cars. We can't do it alone. So I told you last week that you could definitely give the department, the Attorney General Ashley Moody's department. You can give her a call. I doubt very much if you're going to be speaking to her, but you can file a complaint. You can voice your opinion, you know, knowledge is power, and you must, must voice your opinion. You know, Ashley used to be a judge. Did you know that? Ashley was a judge, and she was the youngest judge ever to be on the bench in Florida. Very, very capable person.

She has quite a legal career. I have definitely checked her out. Also, I was going to give you a telephone number that's extremely important for you to get in touch with her. That's 8504-14-3-300-0. 850 414 3300. Let your voice be heard. You're an important part of this show. We can't do it alone. We do have a build-up of female callers, female advocates, and like I said, we can't do it alone. So if you want to get in touch with us this morning, 877-960, or if you want to text us, 772, 497-6530 and I will be repeating those numbers during the show I realize I'm talking pretty fast right now but you the listeners the callers are extremely important and we couldn't do it without you you're an important part of the show you not only call us and voice your opinion but you give

us information that we may not even have so we're all working together and we have an extremely talented panel right here and of course we have jonathan who is a major part of keeping us together again eight seven seven nine six oh you can text us at seven seven two four nine seven six five three zero and don't forget ladies the first two new lady callers you can win yourself fifty dollars this morning don't forget your anonymous feedback dot com we'd love to hear from you speaking of female callers We're going to go to Beth, who's been holding from Maryland. First, Beth, I want to thank you for your patience. Oh, no problem at all.

Are you a first time caller? Yes, I am. Oh, congratulations. You won yourself $50 this morning. If you'll stay on the line after we're done speaking, you can share your information with Nick who's in the control room. Okay, sure will. Thank you.

What can we do for you? Well, I'm up in Maryland, and we have very cold winters. And I'd like to know, I have a 2008 Prius. And I'd like to know if a trickle charger can be hooked up to a Prius. And if so, can it be hooked up to the terminals that are under the hood? Rick? Yes, it can. The one thing I caution though, however, with a Prius especially,

because you've not only got the small 12-volt battery that needs to be maintained, but the hybrid battery needs to see some exercise as well. The best answer really is to actually get the car and drive it or at least run it for a reasonable amount of time at least once every week to two weeks. But yes, a trickle charger can be connected to the jumpstart terminals under the hood, and it'll work just fine up there. Okay, and so let me just be clear. If we will be gone for several months

and cannot run it weekly, the trickle charger will be okay. Well, it'll keep the 12-volt battery charged up, but unfortunately it won't be able to do anything for that big hybrid battery, which is the really expensive.

That's the $3,000 battery. And sitting several months really isn't too good for those. I'd really prefer, if you could find someone that somebody, a neighbor maybe that stays up in that area, that can come over and even if all they do is back your car out of the garage and just let it run for a little while, just to exercise that hybrid battery a bit. Okay, I appreciate that. Certainly. Oh, you're welcome, Beth, and it was great hearing from you.

Spread the word. knowledge is power the ladies hold a lot of power and they are a big part of this show stay on the line and you can give your contact information to nick thank you so much you're welcome i hope to hear from you again Rick i've got a question on that issue there again i'm either forgetting a lot of things or i never knew that to me that's a real negative on hybrids if i was going to buy a hybrid and i was a seasonal person and we have a lot of the seasonal people in this area. Either leave their car up north

or sometimes they leave them down here because they have two cars. So if I let my hybrid vehicle sit for three months, are you telling me I could have a battery situation with my hybrid battery? I'd have to replace it. That is a very real potential, yes.

What is it with the, I'm displaying my ignorance, which is embarrassing for a Toyota dealer, but what is the build-in thing with the hybrids where they will sometimes turn on and turn off or sometimes is that when they first came out a long time ago if you leave if you leave your ignition on does the does the engine ever start to maintain a charge on the battery yes it would but bear in mind then that leaving ignition on means basically leaving

your car in running mode in ready mode and then gasoline would become a factor because eventually it would run out of gasoline. Well, that's true. But, I mean, in three months, I just, I think there needs to be someone looking at this. We need to talk about to hybrid owners

because I don't think, Stu, did you think about this? Have you thought about not leaving a hybrid? If you had a combustion engine and a regular car, it's okay to put a trickle charge on it. But if you have a hybrid, you cannot do that for

a period of time, how long would you say you would be safe to leave a hybrid without any starting up and running? As long as you've got a trickle charger on that small battery, I would say a month to a month and a half would be the

maximum that I would recommend. In my experience, I haven't had that's never been an issue that's been raised before, but I do imagine there is a certain percentage of people out there that do need to leave it for more than a month and a half, but I don't I don't know if it's...

Well, we need to find out, don't we? That's pretty important. I didn't think it was an issue. To be honest with you, I mean, I knew that if you let a hybrid car sit for a year, for two years, it would be... So letting a car sit anywhere is bad for a lot of reasons, and it's always better to have the car started and driven at least once a week. But for a hybrid to battery to fail,

I would think if it was a new hybrid, it would be covered on the warranty, and the hybrid warranties of the batteries are quite extensive. That's a good point. So, Rick, what do you think if somebody didn't drive their car for four months and then they had a hybrid battery failure, but they have the car for two years, three years, because the hybrid battery is 10 years, 100,000 miles? Yeah, if it's still under warranty, then you've got no worries.

It would be covered. I'm surprised that Toyota would address that issue and make it an exception, say, you're 10-year 100,000 miles. warranty is assuming that you start the car at least every two months or something but apparently I've never heard of toilet address if that's not in the in the owner's manual to I couldn't imagine them turning something down that if the battery just failed you know for something's that simple I couldn't imagine that you're not getting covered under a warranty reason I love our call is Beth if

you're still listening from Maryland reason we love the callers is because we learned from the callers here's an issue that is not only something that we didn't think about is something apparently the main manufacturers haven't thought about because you should have hybrid out there and Rick's right what he usually is you don't want to let that hybrid sit even with a trickle charger on it for more than two months I would be getting nervous going beyond two months okay folks on the other side of the coin isn't it great that's calls about a trickle charger catalytic converter you know I could spit all those terms out

but my point is there was a time whenever women they didn't know how to open up the hood of the car so here we are it's the 21st century and women have the power so ladies I have $50 right here on my desk waiting for another female caller 877 960 9960 remember you have to be the first female caller You can also text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, Your Anonymous Feedback.com.

That's the first two female callers. We've had one, so the second female caller, we'll get, if they haven't called the show before, we'll get 50 bucks. Exactly. Rick has got a YouTube over here that. Well, we're going to go to Justin first, who's been calling for a while, and he's calling from Dallas, Texas. Good morning, Justin. Good morning. Good morning. How are you?

Well, thank you. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. I actually had a more general question. I mean, I've owned Toyotas and Hondas, and every time I've purchased them, I've always been able to negotiate the price a little bit. But I'm in the market to buy either an infinity or a Lexus, and I find there to be more resistance in trying to negotiate pricing. Are those higher-end cars, do they have less margin to work with when it comes to negotiating? Or are there Lexus and Infinity dealership that just do not negotiate as business practice?

Justin, the answer is almost all dealerships are negotiable. By the way, between the two Infinity and Lexus, I would definitely buy the Lexus. the Lexus is the number one luxury car recommended by consumer reports that's kind of like the Bible when it comes to objective analysis of vehicle quality but whether you choose the infinity or the Lexus you can negotiate

you always want to get three competitive bids we have a Lexus dealer in I'll say Fort Lauderdale actually is Coconut Creek South Florida largest Lexus dealer in the country. It's called J.M., like in Jim Moran, J.M., Lexus. And they are one price. They're one of the few, there are some other one-price dealers. But one way to start would be to call and get a quote from J.M. Lexus in Coconut Creek. And you can use that to negotiate, but I would buy, whether

I'm buying an infinity or a Lexus, I would get the best price from three competitive dealers. Yeah. And the other part of your question is on the higher end models, there's a lot more margin to work with. It's not that they're not making enough profit. There's a huge markup on those higher expensive vehicles. But Earl mentioned earlier that we did mystery shop with J.M. Lexus by over the phone. And they did, they discounted their one price, but they offered a discount right up front without even asking for it. I forget about that. Oh, yeah, yeah. We had another mystery. I won't identify the person, but we had another mystery. shop and over the phone they offered a discount so and that's the first we've

experienced there because we know they were true blue to one price they also have a small hidden dealer fee which was too small to mention in Florida because if you're under a thousand dollars you're unusual in Florida but yeah competitive shopping of infinity or Lexus and as Stu said there is a large markup in electric cars they tend sometimes to be a little tougher to negotiate with than a Chevrolet dealer or a Ford dealer. But if you get three different infinity dealers, three different Lexus dealers.

In Dallas, you probably got four or five Lexus dealers within driving distance. Get a price from each of them. Be sure it's an out-the-door price. Don't take anything except an out-the-door price and tell them that I call an out-the-door price what I can write a checkout for, bring it to you and drive my Lexus

or in my infinity home. If you get that price from three or four dealers, you get the best price, hands down. Yeah, I think he said he's going to hang up and listen to the answer. Okay, very good. Okay, well, that's very good. I think we're about ready to get to YouTube, and we have some more tech coming in.

I've got a really interesting one for you here. Into tech, he says, I leased a new 2020 car, an Accura RDX, in December of 2019 just got stopped by a state trooper they ran the car's registration in plates and the trooper found the color of the car

does not match the registration and he said the plates and sticker on the car show the same information as all the registration things but the color does not match I know how that happened he called the dealer they confirmed that the color of the car

is not registered properly on his paperwork. He's got a black car, but on the registration paperwork, it shows is white. He was given a ticket by the trooper, and he says that the dealer told him that the color doesn't matter on the registration paperwork, so they won't do anything for him. Oh, my God. And if he wants, he can pay to have it re-registered, and it will cost him $400. That's horse pucky. They got to fix it for them.

What are they doing? That's insane. So this is exactly how this happens. Somebody at the dealership got a printout of their incoming cars that are about to get delivered, and they enter them by hand into the computer, and they have to actually type in the color of the car, and somebody read something wrong, and they typed the wrong thing.

It's 100% on the dealer, and if it results in the ticket, they should be 100% liable for paying the ticket and correcting it without any other charges to the customer. What this person has to do is to get to somebody in authority, at the dealership, they're talking to a lower-level supervisor called the dealer, the owner, the general manager, because they could take them to a small claims court.

I wouldn't waste money on a lawyer, but you could file a small claims court, and you'd win, hands down, certainly is the dealer's responsibility. Yeah, those mistakes happen occasionally. We have screwed up before. We actually had somebody who was pulled over the wrong VIN and was actually almost arrested. This is years ago, and it was an honest mistake,

and it was full stop, fix the problem and take care of the customer. Yeah, rule of thumb, when you have a problem with a car dealer, if you're talking to a salesman or a sales manager, you're probably not getting all the integrity and responsibility. We had a caller last week, two weeks ago. They did an amazing job of getting up the ladder to the owner of the dealership and was able to have all its problems solved.

So push, push, push until you have a person in true authority. Be careful because when you walk into a car dealership, Everybody's a manager, and it's like walking to a bank. Everybody's a vice president. But be sure, either go online, look at the employment organization chart, find the top guy or top gal. And if you talk to that person, your chances of getting your problem resolved are much, much higher. Yeah, that's crazy. And it's not easy to do, but it's easier than getting in touch with the CEO of Comcast or AT&T.

Exactly. They are usually local. They're around. Okay, folks, that telephone number again is 877-960-99-60, and you can text us. Don't forget to text us at 772-497-6530. And Janet from North Carolina asked me how she can pull up the best websites for purchasing a vehicle. And she wants the top-rated, she said she doesn't want to have to choose from a large list, but just maybe two or three.

And Janet, I would say that AutoTrader is number one for me. And I would say number two would be Kelly Blue Book. You've got True Car, Edmonds. There's quite a few of them, so let your fingers do the locking on your PC. That'll be a great help to you. Does she want to find out about used cars or new cars? Pardon me? Does she want to know the best site for new cars or used cars?

No, she didn't say. Okay. I just, I would put it a little asterisk with a caution on things like AutoTrader. Like AutoTrader does not list any of the hidden fees that are in there. And so most dealers, if you sort them by price, you look, you're going to see all those prices are, do not include an additional probably 1,000 plus and fees. True car, even though they have kind of diluted their effectiveness, because they used to give you an absolute price that you can buy the car for. Now they tend to give you ranges of prices for participating dealers. But, What they do is they will break down all the fees, and they break down all the incentives so you can actually see what you're paying for. And it might even give you an opportunity to negotiate a little bit more when you get that price because you can see how much those fees are. And dealer installed equipment, too. Great advice, Stu. And also, I'm a believer in Consumer Report. There you can get so much information.

And, well, take your time, investigate the websites, Consumer Report. There's a lot of avenues that you can open up in taking your time to purchase a vehicle. A vehicle is a pretty big investment like purchasing a home. 877-960 or you can text us at 772-497-2930 and the lines are lit up. We are going to go to Jessica. Good morning, Jessica. Hello? Are you there, Jessica?

I think we lost Jessica. Oh, no. Call back, Jessica, please. Yeah, please call back. We apologize for making you wait, and we'll try to prioritize our telephone calls. I know we've got a bunch of text backing up, Stu, do we? Yeah.

We got one here from Jamie in Massachusetts. Jamie asked, what do you teach your salespeople as an appropriate range for pricing? Would you consider a $13,000? vehicle in the same range as a $6,800 used car. Well, we don't teach ranges at our dealership. We are a one-price dealership. It's a no-haggle thing.

I would think that those two examples that you use, though, the $13,000. No, I wouldn't consider that in the same range. I mean, a range maybe of a couple of thousands, I think, would be, you know, 10 to $12,000. I didn't understand the question. I think he is shopping for a vehicle and got a range on pricing. So somebody might have said, yeah, they range anywhere between $60,000 and $13,000. That's kind of a big pricing ban. Well, it's true for any model car because based on your options and accessories and things like that.

Oh, that's true. But that's a pretty big range. Now, on like an appraisal, if you call it and say, how much is my car worth, I think a reasonable range because they do very widely, as long as they say depending on the condition we see it maybe a range of $2,000 or $1,500. Yeah, the reason I've given you range is because they want you to come in. They don't, there's an old saying in the car business, you can't sell a car over the phone.

And so when people, you can also apply to email, you can't sell a car over email, only guess what? Now you can sell a car if you insist. But the car dealer's greatest enemy is distance when their potential customers on the phone or on the other end of the email, they don't feel like they have the control. So they'll give you a range to suck you in,

and you just have to put your foot down and say, look, this is the car I want. You give me your best price, or you'll never hear from me again, and that generally will elicit a price, a specific price. The biggest phone skills training company out there for car dealers is a company called Applied Concepts,

and they train that exactly as they said. So if they ask you how much the car cost, you say, well, sir, that that car ranges from $13,000 and $22,000 depending on the equipment. When would you like to come in? Okay, folks, I have a caller. I think Earl just gave me a look. Do you have something you can discuss before?

Callers prioritize. Okay, we're going to go to, I believe, Jessica's holding. Good morning, Jessica. Good morning. Good morning. How are you today? Great. Thank you for the call.

Thank you for having this show. really informative. It's my first time listening. And I have a question. I moved here to Florida from California. I bought my car in California. It's a 2008 Hyundai Veracruz. And I wanted to know now that I live in Florida, are there certain maintenance things that I need to do in order to preserve the life, especially of my battery? I've heard that there's different battery life here in Florida than there was in the other state. And it's kind of been confusing. So, well, bricks the authority on that, Jessica. And, you know, there's not a huge difference depending on California is such a big state that depending on whether you're northern

central or southern California, you just got about all the climates there. In Florida, we have high heat and humidity. And if you're on the coast, we have salt, spray type of thing, a very corrosive problem if you're on the coast. Rick, when somebody, what are we experienced in Florida that most other states don't experience with come to battery life? Rick, before you answer that question, I just want to let Jessica know that that is a great question because maintenance is so important on your vehicle and it certainly extends the life. Go ahead, Rick. really there's not a whole lot extra that you can do here in Florida that isn't required anywhere else the best thing of course is make sure you drive the car a reasonable amount and for the

somewhat do-it-yourself or every so often pop open the hood and just look at the top of the battery if it seems like it's really dirty or if you have like a bluish-white kind of like granular stuff around the battery terminals, the best recommendation is to get a simple spray bottle of water, just plain water, and just spray down the top of the battery really, really well, and it will wash all that stuff away. Yeah, let me jump in there and say that this is what the service department should do for you. You should be abiding by your Hyundai recommended owner of maintenance, which is probably twice a year and every 6,000 miles or something like that.

So you should have your car looked at at least every 5,000 or six months. And if you do that and you've got a good service department, they'll wipe off the terminals and clean them for you. They've got to keep the terminals clean. Some places, though, will actually charge and say it's a battery service. And they'll clean off the top of the battery. Then they'll put a protective spray or some grease on those terminals to help prevent that oxidation. but other than that there's really not a whole lot extra that you can do.

If they charge your change service departments because that's a complementary thing. It's like cleaning your windshield. I mean, it's not, there's something it's easier to do. You do a load check on the battery while you're doing the load check on the battery, which they should do to see if you need another battery,

they should wipe it off. It takes them two minutes and there should be no charge. Okay, well, both of those facts are good to know because I I like knowing what's going on, and I like to be able to be a DIY girl when I can. And then I also like to know that that's something that they should do. So thank you very much, very informative. Thank you.

Oh, thank you so much, Jessica. And I like that part of a do-it-yourself kind of gal. That's exactly what defines me. And thank you for being part of the show. And spread the word up there in Sebring for the... ladies to give us a call. And I think Rick has one more. And stay on the line because she's a first time caller. Yeah. Nick in the control room, we'll want to get your details. But bear in mind that in South Florida, batteries tend to last about three and a half, four years. If you get more

than five years out of a battery here in South Florida, you're doing really good with it. And how about all the saw and brakes? Don't we see a lot of weird like patterns? Like if you park your car, the same way and it's like facing the sea breeze you'll tend to get more corrosion on your brakes on the side of the vehicle. If you live right near the salt water, near the intercoastal or near the ocean, especially by the ocean where you've got that

wind and the waves, that salt water can just destroy a car. I got one more public service announcement. Great. Now that you're here in humid hot South Florida, please run your VIN at safercar.gov because another thing that South Florida

has a big effect on is how fast these defective Takata airbags degrade. So make sure that your Santa Cruz, run the VIN, go to safercar.gov, enter your VIN number on your car and see if you have any recalls. And if you have the Takata airbag recall, those become more dangerous down here in hot, humid South Florida. And Jessica, you moved to a beautiful state, but you really have to be careful with a lot of different things and great information that's due to share with you.

but you do qualify for the $50, Jessica. So if you leave your contact information with Nick in the control room, I'll make sure and get that out to you today. Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much. And again, thank you for having this show. Very informative. And gives me one more thing that I know what to do, the queen of everything.

Exactly. Thank you so much and have a great day. Okay, we've got some more texts. We've got a YouTube over here. Yeah, but we're going to go to Howard. And Howard's a regular caller from Jupiter. Hi, Howard. Good morning. Nice speaking to you guys.

Hey, Howard. Okay. All right. Let's stick with batteries. Now, some batteries are completely sealed. You can't add the silver water, correct, Rick? Yes, that is correct. Okay, now, is it better to buy a sealed battery

than a battery that you could actually add the silver water to? Does it make a difference? And why do they seal some batteries where you can't put water in other batteries you can? I honestly don't know the answer to them. Is it a price thing? The price thing, do the seal batteries cost more? They do. The maintenance-free batteries do cost a little bit more.

My recommendation really is I would stick with a reliable brand of battery. Because like I say, here in South Florida, three and a half, four years, you're really not going to get much more than that maybe five at the most out of a battery and then it's going to be time to replace it and I would rather spend the money every so often to get a new battery than to take a chance on having it fail

right at the worst time because it's never going to fail right when you're at a service department it's going to fail out in the middle of alligator alley two in the morning with no cell service and pouring rain what's your favorite battery because I want to use the battery that Rick Kearney recommends. I actually just use normal interstate batteries.

I use the Toyota battery that ours are made by interstate. Consumer reports, two words. No, two words, Rick Kearney. And I choose Rick Kearney over consumer reports over Rick Kearney. The other thing, Howard, you probably already know the answer to this, but you have a warranty from the battery manufacturer from the battery manufacturer and too often when you have a problem in your battery we forget about this the car dealers or the service departments forget about this but whatever your battery

manufacturers has a warranty and it's a pro-rate reimbursement if you have a problem and you have to contact your battery manufacturer yourself unless you have a service department that is kind enough and responsible enough to do it on your behalf but first thing you ask when somebody you need a new battery to say do i have any warranty left on my battery and double check because you can get you know 25 percent back 50 percent back and oftentimes i see a lot of batteries that seem to fail within warranty yeah and then you have to go to the battery manufacturer but you know that howard i'm sure okay so let me ask this question i bought a to toyota from you 2017 uh what does toyota warranty the battery how long do they

warranty to the batteries? Usually it's one of the new car warranty. Three years, 36,000 miles on the original battery. And then replacement batteries, it's going to be based on what level of battery you purchase. As a matter of fact, Toyota has recently come out with a lifetime warranty battery that is prorated to a much greater extent, basically for the life of the car. But you'll still get a pro rate, but it's a much longer time for it. okay one other question Rick you remember those little rings that they put on the terminals red

for the positive and green for the negative yeah oh yeah was that a joke no what that was was older batteries the technology wasn't as good the quality wasn't as good so with a lead terminal meant to the plastic they would leak battery acid there and those were meant to collect that acid

and prevent it from corroding the terminal. But now they're sealed much more better to a higher level of quality. Pardon my poor grammar there. But there's a much greater level of quality on the batteries. So those really aren't as necessary anymore. A little bit of anti-corrosion spray when you put the new battery in, that'll solve everything. Okay. One other important fact that I'd like to expound. A friend of went into Midas Muffler for a break job, and they said he needed rotors. And he said, okay, how much? And he said, well, I'm going to take the car.

And they told him you can't take the car out, it's not safe, refused to let the, so he said, I'm going to call the police department, and I'm going to sue you, and he left. And he found out that there was nothing wrong with his rotors. So can you explain why a place like Midas would do a thing like that? Because they're thieving, they're thieves? That's being a thief. Let me jump in there. Midas, as you know, is a franchise operation like Cardinalship.

So Midas Corporation probably hopefully doesn't know they have a rotten apple and that franchise person. And it might even be the employee of the franchise person. So before we call Midas Thieves, thieves, we need to think about who the actual thief was. I charge Midas with a responsibility, and they should know that they have some rotten apples out there and be policing their franchisees. But any car dealership or service station has to release the car no matter what. Is that correct?

Oh, sure, absolutely. Not only was a dishonest act, it was a stupid dishonest act, because everybody knows. That's my favorite. Now, if you do, there's a caveat there, Howard, a car dealer, or any service department does work on your car in Florida. I'm not sure how the other states are. They have a mechanics lien on your car until you pay them. So you're stuck if you have work done on the car. If you don't like to work, you say you're shoddy, it wasn't what I asked for.

You can get into a big argument, but they can hold your car until you pay them, which is arguably not very, fair. But you do have to go to court to get your car. And if in fact you can prove they didn't do the work properly, then they'll let you have your car. But they can hold that car until it's resolved legally. It's a mechanics lien, and they are in the right legally. Okay, right. That makes sense. Okay. Thank you very much for your information. And you, as always, have done a great job in informing people about various things having to do with cars. Thank you, Howard. Thank you, Howard. Thanks for being a regular caller. And you can call us at 877-960. Don't forget, we've got that great mystery shopping report. It's from H. Craig, Nissan. And again, it's a doozy. And you can also text us at 772-4976530. And don't forget, you too can read the mystery shopping report. And we'd love to hear from you. Okay, guys, the line. are not lit up, so you've got the floor.

I got plenty of stuff to fill the time. We have a text from Steve in New Jersey. We spoke to Steve last week. Steve says, good morning, Earl. I'm looking to purchase a dash cam. The owl plugs into the car's diagnostic port. And Rick had a concern last week about the insurance companies issuing a plug-in device that can affect the car's computer.

Should I be concerned with the owl device? The owl is just, I love it. I mean, I wouldn't be without my owl. and I've had other dash cams that can't even touch it quality-wise. My answer there is no. You've got no concerns. The concern with the insurance company's little devices that they're plugging in is that they are so incredibly cheaply made so that they can give them out for free.

The owl is it's an expensive product, but much higher quality and does not attach in on the lines that are actually the computer's data cables, it's more looking for the power and ignition and ground sources to run the camera on. So it does not use the data cables at all, unlike those insurance devices that do use those data cables and can mess up the signals to the computer. And I use one as well. It's the coolest thing in the world.

I stop using it because I got a different car and just the way you suction cup it to the windshield and it has a little anchor there but my windshield's too small or the angle's too weird and it blocks too much of my view which by the way is a good segue into the next question we have

it's on your anonymous feedback.com and the question says what cars do you, Earl, Nancy, Stu and Rick drive curious to know what kind of cars you guys drive and I drive a 2020 Toyota Subaru I drive a I drive a 2020 Avalon.

That's right. Earl, you drive a 2017 Lexus L.S. 500. Yeah, 18, 17, something like that. And my Avalon gets 25 miles to the gallon. And the highway is 31. We're not here to sell Toyota's Nancy, but thank you very much. Okay, Sue. And Rick, Rick drives Tacoma, I believe.

What year is that? 2013. 2013 Tacoma. And nobody asks Jonathan, but he drives a camera. What year is your camera? 2014, Camry. So there you have it. Okay, so we have another anonymous feedback. It says, can you shed some light on car dealer's biggest secret?

Most people don't know that the service reps at a dealer are paid commission for selling services, oil changes, repairs, et cetera, for their dealer, for the consumer. Not all dealers pay commission, however, many people don't know this. Most consumers go into a dealer knowing that the car salespeople are paid commission, hence the high-pressure sales tactics. However, when people bring their cars in for service to their dealership, they purchase the car from, the service reps will try to upsell fluid changes by planting a seed in the consumer's mind to get them to add on unnecessary services either done earlier or not needed. I think this needs to be made more aware as this can go on for years and years where people service their cars based on service reps' recommendations, hence a long-term game for the dealership.

Thanks. Keep up the great work. we have talked about that a lot and at our dealership we do we still pay commission to our service advisors we have other factors customer satisfaction and some other things I'm I've been we do have one pricing though yeah we have one pricing yeah anytime you face a commission salesperson and then unfortunately this is a fact of American life car dealers do it real estate salespeople do it Most salespeople, whether they're selling shirts or shoes, or a lot of people are paid in commission. So it's something you need to know and take into consideration. You have people that are paid on commission that are strictly honest,

and they won't try to sell you something you don't need. And you have the other type, too. So when you're buying something, unless it's on Amazon or something, probably one of the reasons online is taken off is pretty much, When you have to put your bottom line price online, you usually are insulated from selling you something that you didn't choose. You can do your own research, check the ratings, and buy it that way. But Commission salespeople is the way we do it in America.

It invites trouble. Probably the world, too. Yep. And here's another anonymous feedback. It says the mystery shopping report seemed to be mostly about sales and advertisements. Where are the service lane mystery shopping reports Earl mentioned a long time ago? I will say that I am so relieved

that we haven't had to listen to Costco shopping reports for some time now. Me too. Guilty is charged. It's harder, though. It's definitely much harder to go in there. Well, what you do is you disable something and you pull a wire on the air conditioner,

Rick can show us what to do. You unplug something, something that would be a simple fix, and you go in there and you ask them, check. Now you've got to decide when they tell you that you need a new air conditioning unit are they just really really stupid or are they really really dishonest but it's still something we should we should check and and the texture is absolutely right and we will put it on our must-do list and we should be shopping service departments especially for major repairs you know one thing uh you can shop a lube oil filter or a tire rotation

or oil change but uh if you have a transmission go out uh you're talking very very expensive So we'll do that, and thanks for the recommendation. Yeah, our listeners have really suggested that so many different times. Yeah. And I've had the ladies call me and asked me the same question about a female going in to have her car serviced, and she would like to talk to the mechanic and see how it all turns out. So, ladies and gentlemen, we'll get on that. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-6530.

And don't forget, you need to get in touch with the Attorney General Ashley Moody and let your voice be heard about all this fine print, about the hidden fees, about taking advantage of the consumers. She can help us. Give her a call. Her telephone number is 850-4-1-4-3-3-0. Okay, I said it's slow enough for you to jot that down. back to Stu. All right, we have a text from Dave in San Diego. So it's greetings from San Diego. Love your show. It's almost unthinkable that they're actually a car dealer like you. I think that all the time, Dave. I have a question about a used car search I've been on for several months. I'm looking for a particular car. It's a Volvo XC60. And there are not many of these available nationwide. I've zeroed in on one at a Volvo dealership in New Jersey. This car is

certified through Volvo, relatively low miles, et cetera. Everything checks out. What do you think about buying a car that you will not be able to drive first. I've driven the equivalent of a car in San Diego, but it's not the actual car. Would you have it inspected? It's already gone through a 170-point inspection, so they claim, and I have the report. New brakes, new tires, etc. There's also the matter of shipping the car across the country, which would cost around $1,500. Do you recommend this? If you want the car that bad, Dave, I would have an independent mechanic drive the car for me. You should have every used car checked out by an independent

mechanic anyway. It's going to cost you $150, probably, for a thorough checkover, but it's the single most important thing you should do when you buy any used car. So include in there, say, here's the car, I want you to check it out, but take it for a test drive. He's in San Diego,

the car's in New Jersey. That's what I'm talking about. How's he going to find a mechanic he trusts in New Jersey? Well, he's going to call, he's going to look on the rating for mechanics. He's going to look for an ASC certified. You could find a Volvo dealer mechanic in New Jersey. If someone works at a Volvo dealership, you could call the Volvo dealer.

There's a lot of ways to find good mechanics. And I would find that mechanic, have them check the car out and test drive it. Maybe ask them also if they have any kind of return policy that doesn't have restrictions. Rick's got a thought. I would actually go on the forum sites for Volvo owners, because, again, you've got another community of people that love the, those cars, and I guarantee there's a group in New Jersey that could recommend a mechanic there that would be like a top-line guy, very trusted by people that know their volvos.

I would take a Volvo mechanic from a Volvo dealership and use them because Volvo is a unique car, and if you're talking about an independent mechanic somewhere at ABC auto repairs, you might not get a quality check, plus the fact they don't have the diagnostic equipment. true yeah this is at the he's buying it from a Volvo dealership yeah he's buying it from a Volvo dealership but that would not be an independent check he should go to another Volvo dealership for a technician that has no pressure on him to tell him what a great car it is yeah I think I mean not to debate I just think that it would be pretty difficult to have a Volvo dealership agree to send their used car to

another Volvo dealership to check it out for the guy well then I don't they don't buy the car. You should never, ever buy a used car without having checked out by an independent mechanic. And that's my recommendation. Let's move along here. Great advice. Great advice. Excuse me. I want to give a shout out to John, who just texts me from Sound Advice. Hi, John. Thank you for listening. We're going to go to John in Palm City. Good morning, John. Good morning, John. Good morning. Hey.

I just want to, I mention it's almost five years now. In September 2015, Volkswagen admitted to the cheating on the admission standards. They circumvented the EPA standards, and they were accepted a level of nitrate oxide was 40 times what was supposed to be. But they did settle that year with the Volkswagen owners of 550,000 Volkswagen. and it was $14.7 billion, but they were dragging their feet in Germany. In Germany, they're not saying how many cars were involved in that country, but they had over 60,000 lawsuits that were going on and on and on, and finally the highest court in Germany told them that they have to give reparation.

So what the deal is, they're not saying how many cars were involved, and they're saying that the Volkswagen's have to be returned for an inspection at the Volkswagen dealers and they will make some kind of compensation its cost is unknown and what they're going to do but it's a partial refund of the purchase price but it just shows you the United States is ahead of the whole game and in Germany where the cars mostly are made and they were dragging their feet but finally it's going to be settled and I'm just wondering how many of these cars today are sitting on used car lots, and how safe are they as far as the emission goes?

That's a good question to ask, and I just say be careful on any used Volkswagen, that's diesel. That's my point here. Another thing on diesel, if you notice on a diesel station, a lot of it is combined with a regular pump, there's a diesel which is usually green. And if you notice that it's very green, and dirty around it.

And if the station is not good, you even see some on the floor. And diesel fuel is very sticky and oily. So it's very important that you just stay away from that part that's like that because I don't know. A doctor has admitted that the diesel fuel can, the coronavirus can stick more to that greasy film that's laying around. So I don't know how true that is, but the diesel fuel, when they fuel up a car or a truck, is quite messy, and you see it around the pump and on the floor.

Well, thank you, John. That's something I didn't know either, but I appreciate your calling us to our attention. Well, be careful on the diesel. That's all I've got to say. Well, thank you, John. Appreciate the call very much. Yeah, thanks for joining us again on this Saturday morning. We'd miss you. if you didn't give us a call. Okay. More killed. And John reminds me about, well, speaking up for Tina, who we have not heard from.

And I don't believe that she called last week, did she? No. No. Okay, well, Tina, if you're listening, we'd love to hear from you. 877-960, or you can text us at 772-497-6530. Okay, is it YouTube or texts? We got text. We got anonymous feedback. We got everything. We have, somebody just has a question once, a suggestion on what used SUV to get in the $15,000 to $17,000 range. I'm biased towards the Hondas and the Toyotas. I'd recommend maybe a Rav4 or a Honda CRV maybe in the 2017-2018 year. What about consumer reports? What do they say?

I didn't look it up yet, but I know that the Rav-4 and the CRV usually feed. feature pretty high. I can't comment on those particular years, but definitely check out consumer reports. And I'd throw in also consider the Subaru's. Oh yeah, Subaru's. Subaru actually makes a very good SUV lately. That's right. Okay, here's another good one here. It says, good morning everyone. If I'm looking to get a great end of the month deal on a new car, should I ask the dealer if they're close to hitting a sales goal? I don't want to start throwing out insultingly low offers. I'd rather it be a win-win. I think

that's a great suggestion. I don't know if your salesperson will know that answer. Sales manager might, and that might give you a little leverage. If they are close to hitting it, you remind them of that. You could say they close at 9 o'clock on the 31st of the month, show up at 8.30 and say, did you hit it yet? I could be your golden ticket. Let me back up to the consumer reports on SUVs.

So easy to check. Took me 10 seconds to pop this up on the screen. So why guess the number one SUV, according Consumer Reports, is a 2020 Kia. Telluride, score of 92. And the number two is a Porsche Cayenne, 88, Hyundai Palisade, 87, and then the 2020 Subaru, Outback, Mazda, Toyota, is down to 86 with a Highlander. So remember when consumer reports rates a car. They buy the car from the dealer, just like you would buy the car. They don't get a special price.

They don't even tell the dealer who they are. They just buy the car and they test it. They don't have any conversation with a manufacturer. They don't advertise. There's no payment involved. It's purely objective. So we love it when you call the show and ask us for our opinion, but our opinion can't hold a candle.

to what the Consumer Reports guide is. They check it for safety, cost of maintenance repairs, cost of insurance, comfort, acceleration, everything you can think of, they've already taken it through all the ropes, and when they come up with a recommendation, it's pretty darn good. Yeah, and every little detail, and our household wouldn't be without it. Earl has his magazine that arrives at the front door, and I have mine. That's how involved we are in the Consumer Report. It's worth its weight in gold can save you a lot of money.

Okay, anonymous feedback. It says your June 6th show mentioned about the car insurance device that helps provide a discount. State Farm offers one which does not plug into the OBD2 sensor. Maybe that's the O2 sensor and will not affect the car. I'm not sure Rick can clarify. It works with an app on your smartphone connected by Bluetooth. Cool.

As long as it's not plugging in on that plug under the dash, which is where the computer, a technician would plug in a computer to communicate with the car. As long as it's not plugging in there, I wouldn't see a problem with it. Okay. Another anonymous feedback. Does Toyota make a vehicle that you can tow flat with an RV? No. Okay. That settles that.

What does tow flat with an RV mean? I know what an RV means, but... Obviously, you see a lot of cars being pulled behind RVs. Some of them with the front wheels off the ground. So the back tires are on the ground. Some of them up on a trailer, which is the best way. And some of them, in order to actually do this, it's called dingy towing, like a dingy boat behind a larger boat.

With the car, with all four wheels rolling on the ground, the car has to be modified in order to allow that to happen without damaging the car. and my opinion you're much better off getting a trailer to put the car on behind an RV okay

and we have a comment here from Mark on Facebook says Earl you don't have to worry any more about me being a pain in your rear I guess my critique

of wearing PPE in the studio last week was disruptive I just thought because of Dr. Fauci's recommendations and because you had safe distancing in the studio

that you might send a different message to the audience you all did you all did send a safer message for that audience to get the right message and we shall all be thankful and it's Mark. Thanks Mark. I don't remember the. I think I'm not quite, oh, somebody sent something in about that we were harming our health because we were rebreating exhale CO2 in our masks. Oh, I didn't. I forgot about that. Yeah, no, and then I just kind of corrected it and said that,

yes, you do exhale CO2 and you're probably maybe even breathing a little bit more than you normally would, but it's definitely the safer way to go. Absolutely, yeah. And we are caught up with text and non-s feedback and everything. Got a couple of YouTube's here. Okay. Let's see. The first one is Mark from St. Louis is asking,

Earl, could you please elaborate on power train warranty and why it's worthless? I had a water pump replaced under it and didn't cost me anything. Well, I guess it's not told. Even a broken clocks right twice a day. I guess I'm not totally, they're totally worthless, but they cover components on your vehicle that are lubricated, and they're usually the most reliable parts that fail the least. As long as you perform all your factory recommended maintenance, in some cases, you actually have to perform more than the factor recommended maintenance.

Power train warranties are designed to sound good, but they really don't give you much. return on your premium that you spend. To have to pay anything for a power train warranty, it's kind of like nitrogen new tires. If you get it free, and some dealers advertise it's free, then okay, that's fine. But if they charge you anything for a power chain warranty, the odds are about 99 out of 100. You'll never be able to successfully use it. The fine print on the warranty will tell you that you have to maintain that car extremely carefully. And if you maintain any car extremely carefully, the odds of anything in the power train

failing are infinitesimal. So don't waste your money and do not spend it on a power train warranty, but accept it if it's given to you free. Okay. And Rick Pettenger is asking, I'm checking out a used car question. How do I ask the local dealer for the time to go check out a car? I'm guessing he's asking how would you approach a local dealer and say, I want to take this car somewhere to have it inspected by another mechanic? Well, you're holding all the cards when you haven't signed. If you're going to buy a car, and they know you're intending to buy a car, they want to do anything they can to encourage you to do so.

So asking to take a car to an independent mechanic, if it takes a day or two days or 12 hours or four hours, find out ahead of time and try to make it as reasonably short as possible, but you don't want a quickie. You want to find out that the mechanic did what he was supposed to do. And then you approach the selling dealer and say, this is what I want, condition of my purchase. You'll practically never find a dealer that will say no. And if a dealer says no to taking your used car to an independent mechanic,

there's probably a reason for it. And that is because there's something that dealers that are going to find out that's wrong with it, that means he can't sell you the car. Insist, if you can't get that permission to have your used car that you're buying checked out, don't buy the car. Absolutely. 877-960-99-60, or you can text us at 772-497-3530. And I have a text from Marianne in North Carolina,

and Marianne wants to know how she can be sure that she's going to get an out-to-door price she's out shopping and Mary Ann you're a girl after my heart because if you go to Earl on cars you can find an affidavit that I have come up with it was a great idea so Earl posted it and it will get you the final out-the-door price and the next time that you'll go into the dealership if you haven't already faxed it over to them you can take it with you and you can prevent all of the shenanigans that goes on when you purchase a vehicle. Have them sign it, and if they don't want to sign it, whether it's the salesperson or the manager, walk out. That's my advice.

Irwin Cars, download the affidavit, a tool for an honest price. Thank you for the text, Marian. Another text that popped in. Okay. Because this is a live show in real time. Okay, good morning. This is John from California. Wow, we're getting a bunch of texts from California.

I'm sorry to you. I love California. John from California, I just want to ask, why do dealers still insist and saying that when your lease car is almost done, that the remaining balance would not be added to the new cardio, and we savvy car shoppers know better. I've learned a lot from your show, and the book I bought it from Earl,

thanks again for what you guys do. And that's true. Usually, like, this is the oldest trick, one of the oldest tricks in the book, like we'll pay off your trade no matter what you will or we'll make your payments for you or we'll get you new car, get out of your lease early, you're always paying. It comes from you. They might be writing the check. So if you have three months left on your lease and they talk you into coming in to get out of your lease early, those additional three payments have to be made to the bank. So they're going to take those payments. It's going to come out of

the profit and the deal, which means they're going to mark up the car. So very, very smart shopper there, John. And one day I might retire in California. on you. Oh, yeah? Let me mention something. I have my notes. I think if we're running low on text and YouTube's. I have a pet peeve.

I've talked about on the show before, but it's hidden warranties by the manufacturers and the insistence by all manufacturers that if there's something that they are fixing on cars, what comes to mind is paint. We have a lot of paint problems, all manufacturers, especially, Especially in Florida. We talked about that earlier in the show. When you're in a high humidity, high temperature, sunny, they call it sunbelt, you get fading of paint. If the paint isn't right, sometimes they don't have a clear coat on the car, they have other defects. So you buy yourself a nice new car. And about three or four or five, six years later, suddenly it's faded. All the other cars look fine. Take it into the deal. They say, well, you're supposed to wax it every month. you know, and they, you rarely get any sympathy, empathy, or consideration. What you don't know is that there are a lot of manufacturers out there that have, I guess, maybe by class action suits or whatever reason,

they have agreements when you ask that your car be fixed under warranty because it has defective paint. If you come into a dealership and you have faded paint, your car's out of warranty, take it to the dealer and say, look, I've got a problem here. Will you cover this under warranty? That's the magic word. When you ask that it be covered under warranty or goodwill or paid for by the manufacturer in any way, shape, or form, you might be surprised that they have a secret campaign

that they will fix it for you. So attention... It's not just fading. It's peeling paint. Peeling. They call it delamination. That's defect. And it's not just paint.

It's other things. But paint is probably one of the most expensive. I mean, a first-class paint job, a good paint job on a car can be several thousand dollars. So if you've got a car that's peeling, chipping, fading, if it concerns you, I'm not saying in all cases they're going to say yes, but if there is a campaign, the dealer is prohibited. If the dealer, if you come into a dealer service department and the dealer comes up to you or the service advisor says, you know, you need to have a, that car painted, I got some good news for you. Honda has a campaign, well, they'll fix it. They'll paint

that car free. Then they can be in serious trouble. The dealer, they could be canceled, lose their franchise. They could be a warranty, audited, charge back, hundreds of thousands of dollars. The manufacturer

goes after the dealer. If the dealer tells you that you have faded paint that can be fixed by the warranty, you have to ask first. So be proactive whether you have a General Motors Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, whatever product is, go to your dealer and say, is there anything in the literature from the manufacturer warnings, bulletins, saying that you will fix my car and pay for it? You could be picking yourself up four or five, six thousand dollars. And remember, even if the fainted paint

doesn't bother you, it'll bother whoever you sell that car to or trade it in. So if you have faded paint on a Honda Accord and you're thinking about ready to trade it in, go to the Honda dealer. Maybe you want to buy a Nissan. Before you go to the Nissan dealer and have the car appraised, take it to the Honda dealer and say, is there any campaign out there to help me have this car fixed? Let them paint your car. It might be a $5,000 paint job.

Take it to the Nissan dealer when you trade it in and you get $5,000 more or even, Even more than that, because you've got a brand new, shiny, factory painted car. So you have to ask, the dealer is prohibited by the manufacturer against some very severe penalties from asking you if you can, if you would like to have your car painted. You have to ask the dealer first. You know, whenever I think of a bad paint job, all I can come up with is depreciation, big time. Yeah. And it isn't like the old days, you know, back in the 50s and 60s. Rick probably, well, he can't remember, but he knows about it, and you got your car painting, he's still a baby.

But any rate, that's great information. I have a text here, and it's a text from Jessica, and she forgot to ask, I don't drive a lot. Should I be moving my car occasionally to prevent my tires from rotting? Well, Jessica, you should be moving your car for more than, well, one or two reasons. It is really very important. But I'm going to let Rick get into the details of it. Yeah, your tires won't actually rot. What they'll do is develop a flat spot.

When they're sitting in one spot all the time, the rubber will kind of flatten out a little bit. And when you first start driving the car, you'll get this horrible thumping feel. as it's going down the road. Now, within driving for 10 or 15 minutes, they'll heat up and that flat spot will actually smooth back out and round out again. But for the first few minutes of driving, it's going to be very uncomfortable

and could get a little unsafe in severe conditions. So, yeah, at least once every couple weeks, you should get the car out, drive it a bit to exercise it, and give it a chance to charge everything up, lubricate all the seals, and just kind of give us some exercise. I like that analogy, exercise.

Exercise is a great word. And also, Jessica, your tire pressure is really important, and you have to maintain that also. There's a lot of things you need to maintain, even though your car is sitting in the driveway, if you want to be able to go out in a month and drive your car. I'm speaking from experience, okay? I let my car sit for probably two or three weeks.

I went out to use it. It was dead. I think it was like three or three months. You were quarantining. We have some comments on Facebook on an earlier topic we talked about. We were talking about the check engine light and the changes, and Rick got us all very excited about what's coming down in the pike where the car is telling you exactly what it is.

Andre asked on Facebook just want to know, why can't the car just show the code on the dash? And then you can look it up online or call in. And that's another thing that's always bugged me because I think that's kind of, maybe it's built into the system. Maybe are the scan tools something that, um, the car will tell you the code. Does it require a large amount of equipment just to display that code on the dash? No. It would be a very simple thing to do. Yeah. But it's the sort of thing you'd see like

now with the modern cars, it's actually like a seven-digit code. So it'd be something along the lines of like, yeah, P0301015. Right. And you'd have to try to remember this code and then determine what it means. The new way is better. The wood's coming is better. What Steve also on Facebook said on one of the trips up north, going up north from Florida, they got a flashing check engine light on the Ford Edge. And they were told they lost one cylinder,

and that would have caused permanent damage to drive it that way. And he wants Rick to tell you, how much damage would it do if you lost a cylinder? Ah. Now here's, I probably, I should have mentioned this sooner, because, Earl, you'll be interested by this one. If your check engine light comes on solid and the car seems to be running okay, you should be okay to keep driving it.

However, if your check engine light is blinking, that generally indicates that one or more cylinders are misfiring. And if a cylinder is not firing properly, it can cause damage because of pre-ignition or that added fuel that's being sent through that cylinder as it's trying to fire, getting into the exhaust, it can heat up the catalytic converter and cause excessive heat there

can cause damage to the catalytic converter, possibly causing it to plug up or even catch fire. So a lot of money and danger? Well, there was actually a case not long ago, an older couple pulled their car off the side of the road out by the locksatchee, the acreage area. They got stuck in some sand, and as they sat there with the engine running for the air conditioning,

it actually caught fire and the car burst into flames with them in it. Do all cars have that phenomenon of flashing check engine lights if a cylinder is misfiring? Yes, that is standard across the board. Is that by design on the warning system, or is that just something that happens electrically because of the system? No, it's by design, and the idea is that a steady light you'll kind of ignore A blinking light catches your attention more.

Is that in the owner's manual? I believe it is in the owner's manual that if the light is flashing, you should get to the dealer as soon as possible. I think that should be in the owner's manual in red. And I'm going to bet your lunch that it isn't in the owner's manual. It should be on the cover. Yeah, absolutely. First thing you need to learn.

Yeah. Because, I mean, it's never come up before until Rick mentioned it. And if the dealers don't know about it, then how can the owners know about it? And if it's in the owner's manual, they still don't know about it. It should be, as Stu said, on the front in red, because that's the only indication you have

because I'm serious is when they check in your light is flashing. Okay, you got any more text over there, Stu? We are caught up. We're good. Okay, I have a suggestion for us, and I'm surprised somebody hasn't called in. We're about ready to get to the mystery shopping report, and I'll give you a little bit of a little bit

ahead of time. Once again, nobody wearing masks. Nobody wearing masks. Here we are. Florida is one of the hotline states or whatever they call them. They are the coronavirus is now more hospitalizations and more test positive. So the virus is coming back in spades and in Florida and some other states. And for a car dealership or any retail establishment to have nobody there wearing masks that's that should be a criminal act it's just absolutely terrible so my suggestion is this we are we are scoring people or scoring dealerships now as to their sales practices let's start and we hope we don't have to do this forever we hope this coronavirus thing goes away but it's

not going to go away for a while let's get let's have a coronavirus score and a mystery shopping record, sales tactic score. So if we should list the car dealerships that do not have masks, and maybe that will motivate the car dealerships that are doing that to tell their people to wear a mask. So when you go to Earl Start on Cars and check the archives from Mr. Shopping on boards,

starting next week, we're going to have a list of those dealerships that we've already shopped. It's got to be a half dozen, where nobody wears masks and we're going to tell you find a car dealer of that make where they are care enough about their customers that they are maintaining all the precautions not just masks hand washing social distancing uh hand sanitizer all the things that a responsible retailer should offer their customers and their employees because you're talking life and death absolutely and uh and i think we'll also highlight the ones that do an exceptional job like we've been picking on

Ed Morris, Honda, a little bit, and some of it deservedly so. But they were an exemplary, a great, great example of a dealership that did it right. Not only it was everybody wearing masks, they had big plastic shields up on the desk between the customer and the salesperson. And speaking of Edmores Honda, we got a text. I guess it was probably maybe a YouTube notation from Dave Muirhead. and Dave is the salesperson from last week's mystery shopping report and I'm not going to read the whole thing I'll just tell you he hates me

he he scolded me for wasting his time salespeople worked on commission it was from the mystery shop the video they were talking about was from last year oh last year okay well wait wait the way they hear the new one yeah and I want you to know Dave that I understand And I respect that. What I'd like you to know is that we mystery shop our own dealership and we waste our dealer, our salespeople's time too.

Actually, we don't waste their time. If they get a good shopping report, we pay them $500. So we motivate our salespeople to do well. If they do poorly on a mystery shopping report, then they get a verbal warning, and then they get a written warning, and then I don't want to get too graphic. Then they don't work here anymore. but we mystery shop ourselves just like we mystery shop at Morse Honda and all the other dealerships

and I hope that the people that we like you Dave Muirhead at Edmors Honda I hope you learn something from the mystery shopping report that you can tweak and fine tune and maybe do a better job and maybe you sell some more cars yeah by treating your customers and something I'd like to point out that Dave didn't address in his comments was we call Balls Noges strikes. We don't go in there with any preconceived notions. If somebody does something really wonderful and they behave themselves, we recognize that. And we have a huge listenership, not just nationally. I mean, but locally we have, how many people like the, we have great ratings. I'm not going to get in the details. We endorse that salesperson in the dealership

and we say, hey, if you're in the market for a Subaru, go see John at ABC Subaru, honest guy. and we develop business for you. So that's something that, obviously when we think about that, it's not something we ignored, we realize that you're not selling a car to the mystery shopper. Yeah, we found several salespeople that are more honest than the dealer or the managers. We've had salespeople warn us about the advertising.

They will tell the mystery shopper, some salespeople, this was a dishonest ad just to get you in the door. And we've had amazing integrity and honesty. We had one salesperson refused to sell a car or even allow you to take the car home until they had fixed the Dakota airbag because it had a defective car. So when we see this, when we see extraordinary honesty, we salute you, we celebrate you, we advertise you, and we tell people to go to Edmore Sonda or wherever the dealership and deal with this person because it's all about the person you're dealing with, not necessarily the dealership. Yep. We have a relevant text that just popped in. It says the H. Gregg dealership in West Palm Beach is awful when it came to sanitation.

Nobody's wearing masks. Nobody is following social distancing. There is nobody sanitizing or cleaning. Everything is reused, just awful. And then they added, I also went to Southern 441 Toyota, and nobody was wearing masks or anything. They all tried to shake my hand. So bad. And also the wait times were five hours plus.

Shameful. That doesn't matter. Rick? We have a red letter here, red lettered A, the first comments on Periscope. So I got to read these out a couple of excellent. Periscope lives. Yay. H-H-W-S-H-D-J is the person's name.

It's a Russian bot. It says, what's with the masks? And Boston T-1 says, save yourself, take the mask off, take the mask off. the mask off it's a sign of mind control uh-huh well there's a institution on 45th Street in Wisconsin Beach they can take care of you if you just call them they'll send a car and in a few years you'll be fine yeah well I every morning I get up I put it my I wrap tinful around my head and I get messages that instruct me to put this mask on no I I I just I see I see the behavior and I just wonder what

is going through people's mind. Let's get into, if we don't have any more text, I'll get into the mystery shopping report, but you can keep your text on YouTube and posting on Facebook, and if we finish up the text, the mystery shopping report, we'll get back and do some more text later.

Okay, I'm just going to slip this one in, and it is a text, and it's in regards to what you said about Mass, and this young lady says that it is shocking, and whenever she walks into a place of business and someone doesn't have a mask on or anyone doesn't have a mask on she turns around and she leaves

so that's not good for business smart lady that's what you should do okay mystery shop of H. Greg Nissan two years ago we learned from about H. Greg from one of our listeners never heard of them Frank that's right in Jupiter we mystery shopped them twice since then the first time back in 2018

they did pretty well the second time they failed our Tocata test Despite the mixed results, we put them on our recommended dealer list. Up until now, we understood H. Greg to be just a chain of used car stores based in Montreal with a bunch of locations across North America. Recently, we've learned that H. Craig is in the new car business, too. I didn't know that, and neither did it, too. Last March, they opened their first new car dealership in the United States in Delray Beach, H.G, Nissan.

We shopped them, didn't we? Oh, yeah, we've done the West Palm one. You know, apparently they began their Nissan partnerships in Canada several years ago with three locations. In December, they acquired Kindle Nissan, formerly an automation store. This is the largest Nissan dealership in the eastern United States, which probably doesn't mean it's very big because Nissan's can sell too well. H. Craig may be a serious ovencomer in the retail car business. They're doing some smart online marketing, and they come across as coaches. cutting edge and progressive.

H. Craig's website is impressive, modern, sophisticated, and says all the right things. Very consumer-friendly. They boast about a seven-day exchange policy, albeit not a return policy. Folks, beware. Exchange, forget about it. Exchange just allows a dealer to take advantage of you again. All they're going to do is give you another vehicle that you pay too much money for or you didn't really want. is what you want when you have a return policy. And with mileage and conditions,

they do have a separate return policy within seven days, but they require the return policy 7% restocking fee. Now, that's insane. I mean, if you buy a $50,000 vehicle or you buy a $5,000 vehicle, why should the stocking fee be hugely greater on the high-price vehicle? Doesn't make sense.

In fact, there shouldn't be a restocking fee. it's a gotcha. And it's probably in the fine print. Like their used car locations, H. Gregg, Nissan professes to be a one-price dealership. When we tested this at the West Palm Beach used car location in 2018, they held true to the claim. Trust me, folks, one price, legitimate, honest, one price are few and far between. So that's a plus for H. Craig. We called up Agent Thunder to feel them out. We asked them to go in, try to buy a new Nissan Ultima and see what happened. Agent Thunder was instructed not

to challenge him too much, but to do just a little bit of a pushover. We did ask him to see if they would come off their one price. We wanted to test them on that. Operation report, how do you lick your finger to turn the page? You shouldn't be doing that anyway.

You can't do, you're not supposed to do that. Coronavirus era, don't lick your finger when you turn the page. Okay, here's the report. I started the mission with a phone call. to get a feel for the place. I spoke to an energetic sounding woman who discussed the various trim levels of the Nissan Ultima and set an appointment for me to work with someone named Nicolina.

Pretty name. I drove down to Del Rage's in time for my appointment, walked into the shore room. No one wore mask. I repeat. H. Craig. New car dealership. No one wore mask. There were several clusters of salespeople. Do you get the visual image I do? Not only do you have no one wearing masks, but they're in clusters. They're clustering, they're gathering, they're closing, without masks. Terrible.

Scattered throughout, and not a lot of customers. Well, you don't see very many customers in Nissan dealerships these days at all. A salesman noticed me and approached. I said, I was there to see Nicolina, and he pointed me to a woman at a desk in a glass office. Nicolina came out to greet me. Turns out she was not the salesperson. She was a BDC rep.

Now, BDC stands for Business Development Center and almost all cartilage ships have these today. They're someone. They make appointments for sales people. I have to make a correction because that's what we do. It looks, I'm looking at H. Greg's

website right now, it looks like they change the 7% re-stocking fee and now it says with no fees or no questions asked. Ah, well. That's three days. Thanks for catching them. Not seven days. Okay, three days. Nicolina asked a few salespeople if they were available before she found

someone who could help me. Zach ZAC. I like that name too. Nicolina, Zach. Really cool name. We exchanged Pleasantries and I asked him whether the dealership had any policies. Policy, yeah, policy. Damn auto correct. Regarding protective

face coverings. Zach said that the lockdown has ended and it's not mandatory to wear masks. Well, it's not mandatory, but I can tell you, the Center for Disease Control has just issued a warning because of the fact that the coronavirus is coming back in space and in many states that have reduced the lockdown. So what they're saying is the state shouldn't have relaxed it,

and then they have. Okay, we got another change. I just have to, don't know, because we have anonymous feedback. We have time, usually we were rushing, so we have a little more time. Yeah. Anonymous feedback came in. Earl, you are not the coronavirus authority. The coronavirus has caused death, no question, but it's not a blind life or death situation. You are shaming people, not just dealers. Shame on you for shaming those of us who are not wearing masks and simply staying home.

Shame you, and you can replace shame. Oh, there, shame you can replace shame with a nice four-letter word. Well, just limit the addresses. We're not talking about people who are staying home. We're talking about car salespeople in a showroom. dealerships with hundreds of people exposing themselves to something that's killed 114,000 people.

Well, to address this issue also, I don't believe in controlling any individual's right to choose. I see people riding motorcycles without helmets. They're entitled to do that. I mean, there's an argument on both sides. I think

it's insane to drive a motorcycle with a helmet. I think it's insane to text while you're driving, but people do that. I'm not trying to shame them. I'm just saying, in my opinion, it's the wrong thing to do. It's wrong to drive 120 miles an hour on 95, but some people do that. If you want to take your life into your hands, we're not talking to you. We're talking to our audience. We're trying to save the lives of the listeners to Earl Sterling cars and tell them, don't go into a retail

store. And because we are car dealers, we're saying, don't go into a car dealership. that doesn't have the respect for their customers and employees to require a mask. And if you don't want to wear a mask, you've got your reasons, just like not wearing your helmet on a motorcycle. You have your reasons. But don't risk other people's lives, and that's what we're saying now, to the cardio is out there. Okay, where am I? I got so upset. I lost my place. You met Zach. I know that.

Yeah, that's right. I said, yeah, if the guest asked to wear a mask, then he would wear one. Well, that's not going to, if you walk into a retail store that are so careless that you have to ask them to put the mask on, think of what could that environment could be like because people are coughing and sneezing. If you have someone in there that has, they're breathing. Yeah, exactly. I moved on to a different topic. I said I was there for a 2020 ultima.

I just want their best price. It would be interested in any finance deals they had. I said I understood Nissan offered 0% for 84 months and wanted to know more about that. Jack asked for my driver's license and scanned it with his phone. As long as we've got time, I'll raise this issue. Are we doing that at our dealerships, too? I'm sorry, would you ask?

Do we scan people's drivers? Yes, but the reason we don't do it all the time because we have yet to find a program that consistently works. So you scan it, and then you always have to go there and make corrections in it. Well, I'm just making a memo to Earl, memo to Earl, check with a dealership, my dealership. I think when you're scanning someone's driver's license with your personal iPhone, I think it would be something that would bother me a little bit.

It's one thing to have the business, accept the responsibility for private standards. But when you walk in and see Charlie the salesman, and he scans your privacy, your driver's license, your address, your age, and a lot of other things, and it stays in his personal iPhone. Well, that's a whole other issue, too, which, by the way, because in a lot of cases, where you don't need to get someone's age, that kind of cash purchase, or you don't need to get certain information. Exactly, but it's on the driver's license when you scan it.

It is. And Charlotte's salesman can take that home and he knows your age. A little bit of a security issue. So we need to take a look at that. That was a memo to Earl. At any rate, he asked a few more questions about the model I wanted, and we settled on a 2020 Ultima 2.5 S. Zach was very talkative. I found I found I was offering him information unprompted.

I said I had only $1,000 down. My credit was pretty good. I said I prefer a white vehicle. He found one in the stock asked me to wait while he got it. While I waited, a salesperson approached and asked him everything. manager manager okay I was I was focusing on how to turn the page without look at my fingers and I lost my tracker while I waited the sales manager approach and asked if everything was okay I asked him about going here we go next page

Zach returned let me out to the car I told him I didn't need to drive the car because I didn't want to get in the car because he didn't have a mask on I let that go through his vehicle presentation and he did well I asked him about a 0% for 84 months again. This time, Zach said that it wasn't available on the ultimate. He said they had 0% for 60 months on the ultimate,

but they could still go 84, but not at 0%. I asked him what kind of rate I could get for 84 months with good credit. He said I'd find out in the business office. I'll bet you. I bet you will. You'll find out in the box. Back at his desk,

we continue to talk numbers. Zach explained that his first price is his best price, which would prompt me to have said I'd rather shopped her, how about the second price? Is that your highest price? I think that's a slogan. It's a slogan. He just wanted to use it.

I know. They were a one-pr store. They went over the numbers on his computer screen. The MSRP matched what I saw in the car. $25,000, $235. Now we're just tuned in. We're shopping, H. Craig, Nissan, in Delaware, Florida.

He said the rebate was technically for current Nissan owners, but I was getting it anyway, which bothered me as soon as I saw that. This tells me that either he's lying to me or he's lying to Nissan. If Nissan says you have to be an owner of a Nissan to get the $1,000, then they're paying the $1,000. And if the dealer is keeping that and not passing it along and telling all customers that qualify, I don't know what's going on here. He's lying to somebody, either Nissan or me. Then he added sales tax in fees, a $99 dock fee, a hidden fee, and $946 in fees with no qualification. Then he said those were tag entitled. Well, $946 is a bunch, and it couldn't possibly all be for tag and title,

not on a Nissan Ultima. Out the door I was $22,086. I asked Zach if I could get these figures printed out to take home to review with my family. He said he couldn't give me anything to take, but he could print something for me to take

a picture of it with my phone. Never understood that. Well, it's probably a technicality. They probably tell the salesman, if you give a customer, a buyer's order to take home, you're fired. And they've been saying that So it's a workaround for the sales people you think. So it's a workaround.

Oh, I didn't see him take the picture. And so they do it just to get around the rules. I asked him if I was able to, I asked him if I was able to find a better price at another Nissan dealership. Would he be able to come down on the price? X said he couldn't, but stressed that he felt his price was extremely low, extremely low,

and not likely to be beat. Now, it was. Well, let me say this. A one-priced dealer who says he's sticking to his one price is not really sticking to his one price when he adds hidden fees to the price he advertised. The advertised price, purportedly, is one price. In this case here, we'll find out later,

there was not just one hidden fee, there were two hidden fees. So, one-price dealers are not really one-price. They're 98% price dealers. Yeah, they're not even not. 95% price dealers. In other words, a one price dealer could add $3,000 to the one price. To me, that's not a one price dealer. That's a two prices.

The second price, remember I said earlier? But they have a fee, so it's like a three-price dealer. He says my first price is my best price. That's not true. His second price is his best price because he adds his fees. And the second price, when you come out of ether and find out about both hidden fees. Okay, I asked

him about the $999 doc fee. He said it was a dealership fee, whatever that's supposed to be. What it really is is a hidden fee. And it couldn't come off. I asked about the other fees, and if they were state fees, he conceded, here we go, conceded, okay,

they included an electronic filing fee. We still don't know how much that hidden fee, the electronic fee. We don't know how much that is. There's probably more in there, too. Yeah, you know, something more, yeah. Tag agency or something like that. Yeah.

You don't find out about all your hidden fees until you get into the box, also known as a business office or the F&I office or the finance insurance office. And when you get there, you find out, well, you really don't find out because the computer spits the documents out so fast. You don't see what you're shining,

and you might not find out ever if you do when you get home and review the paperwork. Zach left to print a coffee, returned with a worksheet. Worksheets are things that are not legal documents and it says so on the worksheet which allows them to get away with a lot of shenanigans because they say hey, hey this isn't a legal document so I'm not responsible. It's not a legal document. I don't think that would hold up. Well I wouldn't but it disarms the complainer. Oh they told me it wasn't a

legal document I should have asked the scene a legal document. What Well, you should. You should before you buy a car, carefully read the legal document, not the worksheet. Excuse me, could you please bring the legal one out? Yes, exactly. I'd like to use the legal one as opposed to the legal one. Maybe that's when they put their mask on when they bring out.

He handled a few notes. One addressed my potential payments for an 84-month term, a range of 260 to 284. By the way, that's $12. dollar difference multiply 12 times 84 that's a huge range right there yeah and then you had interest of that I took a picture of the worksheet with my phone I thanked Zach and went on here's the up log they were true to their one price claim I I challenge that they weren't they weren't true hidden fees Zach was pretty upfront and transparent about

fees not true either the bad Zach claimed a about giving Agent Thunder a loyalty rebate, even though he didn't qualify, seem sketchy. And I just said earlier, he had to be lying to either Nissan, the manufacturer, or lying to me if I were Agent Thunder. And that's a story, and we still don't know what all the hidden fees are

because all we have is a worksheet, and we have to Greg, H. Gregg, we really don't have to ask for votes on the mask. H. Gregg failed the mask. Yeah, there's no great, it's past fail. Yeah, and let's go around and see who voted for what, who wants to. Well, yeah, Linda chimed in on Facebook says it's a big fat F and a huge F for safety. And then we have Matt also gives them an F and an F.

And Mike gives them a C-minus and an F on safety. And I'm going to, I'll be in there. I'm going to low passing grade on the sales experience, say a D-plus, and then obviously they failed the COVID. safety protocols. Yeah, deep close. Yeah. What do you think about? Well, I ask myself, when we'll win the, when we will win the battle against all these hidden fees, you know, amongst other shenanigans. Pardon me, Donathan, for stealing your word. But it is the truth. And ladies and gentlemen, you can help. You can help us by getting in touch with Attorney General Ashley Moody.

Give her a call. Let her know what's going on. Because obviously, she does. This continues. Her number is 850-4141-4-1-3300. And, of course, you give them what, the score? I guess, F, all the way around. Who walks around without a mask on? I asked you that this morning. You know, is anyone watching TV?

Are they watching TV? Are they listening? Are they reading a newspaper? I mean, this is some serious stuff. And you talk about a helmet for a bicycle, you know, they're affecting themselves on that bike. If you walk around without a mask on, you're infecting other people and you don't even know it

because you don't even have the symptoms. Yeah, we went through the, we went through the LR dealership. At first, we recommended, first of all, require the employees to wear a mask, obviously. Everybody wears masks in our dealership. And then we said, should we push the customers? So we had an area of customers with mask and an area for customer without mask. And then we started to feel guilty about that.

And so we had to weigh, do we confront our customers and assist? So we decided to do that. And the amazing thing is, it's worked extremely easily. No one blames us for it. We provide masks to those that don't have them. And the customers are happy. You car dealers out there, you'll find that you will. actually have a more positive attitude.

You might get a few hardheads like the text we got earlier. Nobody can tell me to wear a mask. You get a few of those, and he's not going to buy a car from you. But you've got a lot of people out there that they've got some common sense and say, that retailer has the courage to require his customers to wear a mask. And you will get more business as a result of that, then you lose from the nuts that won't wear the mask. So there.

I've got Donovan Lewis with an F, Mark Ryan with an F, Paul Cable with an F, and I've also got a quick note here. Andrew Placinski says he just dropped off his lease return at Palm Beach Toyota, and everyone there was wearing a mask and acted responsible with social distancing, and they were continuously cleaning the public areas at Palm Beach Toyota. So, proxed to them, Palmish Toyota. Absolutely. Their general manager is Shelby Bigelow, and he is, I mean, they're a fierce competitor of ours, but he has Zach together, and so that doesn't surprise me. And it's also a Penske store, and that could be a corporate thing that's come down from, for all the stores nationwide. I was going to say, are there a public store that I said over with H. Grigg. I don't know if they're public or not.

Are they privately owned? H. Grig, I think it's privately owned, but I'm not sure. A public store would have a huge liability to be careless about their customers. Okay, where do we stand? And we got all their votes in? Yeah, I haven't voted yet. I'm on the, once again, I'm on the horns of a dilemma. I'm getting emotionally involved in this mask thing,

so I can't flunk them on the mass thing, although we might change our mind about that. And the other thing is, do we fluck them on the, you know, on the one price? I'm going to give them a D. I'm going to give them a D plus. I'm going to put them, I'm going to say we've got to pass them. I'm very reluctant. They're not that far from the norm. You know, I mean, obviously there was some things,

and I agree with you 100% on the one-price thing. You can't call yourself a one-price thing if you're going to lay down some other fees there on. But attention dealers out there, I'm seriously, we're all seriously thinking, have your salesman wear a mask and ask your customers at least ask, but you've got to have masks.

And if you don't, we're going to start flunking you, and we're going to have a list of dealerships with mask and without mask, We're going to recommend people don't buy from you if you don't have the mask. Okay. You know, Nissan's business is bad enough and to lose a sale, you know, over a mask. It's just totally ridiculous. Ladies and gentlemen, put your mask on.

It's not the law that you're going to be saving lives, including your own. We have come to the end of the show, and we are so happy that you joined us this morning. you know how important you are to the show. Without you, we wouldn't have a show. Join us next week right here, or on cars. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.